Lean tagging makes it even easier for organizations to bridge the gap between lean initiatives and business as usual.
Continuous improvement methodologies, like lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma, and Total Quality Management (TQM) are widely used as a means of achieving greater value for customers at less cost to the organization – the ultimate win-win. Sounds simple, right?
However, for the true benefits of lean to be realized, the value-add and waste-reduction ideas uncovered in lean projects or workshops must be successfully embedded into the day-to-day operations of the business. For many organizations, therein lies the challenge.
Nintex Process Manager has proven itself to be an ideal business process management toolset. It complements these methodologies by making it simple to take the ideas scribbled on Post-It notes or whiteboards and incorporate them into easy-to-follow business processes that can be used by teams every day. And its lean tagging functionality makes it even easier for organizations to bridge the gap between lean initiatives and business as usual.
How does lean tagging work?
Step 1:
It all starts with establishing a common set of lean tags. These tags will be used to flag non-value add activities, waste, opportunities for improvement and more. Use the pre-defined tags or create your own from scratch to suit the terminology used within your organization – whether that be lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma or TQM.
And yes, you can also customize the term ‘lean’.
Step 2:
Adding tags to processes is easy. Simply insert a hashtag (#) when you’re editing a process. This will bring up a list of available tags for selection, just as you would see if you were posting on Twitter or Instagram.
With a little education, process owners and experts can be transformed into everyday lean agents – identifying and categorizing opportunities for improvement within their own realms of expertise.
Step 3:
Once a tag is added to a process, it appears as a blue token on the process map and procedure views.
This is significant, as it means the idea is no longer sitting on a Post-It note or whiteboard but is captured in a central online process repository for everyone to see. This turns good ideas into everyday practice and ensures the lessons uncovered in lean projects and workshops are sustained.
It is also this visual cue at a process level that has the potential to cause the most disruption to your business – in a good way. Lean tagging is designed to elicit conversation about how things could be done better at a grassroots level. This will help drive innovation, engagement and retain the focus of business teams on lean initiatives.
Lean tagging is straight-forward in function and intuitive by design (like the rest of the Nintex Process Platform), yet it has the power to make a real difference to the way lean is perceived and engaged with across all levels of an organization.
Watch this on-demand demonstration to see how Nintex Process Manager and Automation Cloud seamlessly integrate to deliver end-to-end process planning, mapping, managing, and automation.
