Lean CM

What is Lean?

Lean is a set of management practices and philosophies that aim to eliminate waste by improving efficiency and effectiveness while eliminating non-value adding activities.

Lean originated in the manufacturing environment (first implemented by Toyota Corp in the 1930's), but has since become a popular initiative that has been applied to many environments throughout the enterprise and supply chain.

Reduction of Waste Results in:

• Increased efficiency, productivity gains

• Reduced production time

• Cost reductions

• Improved profit

• Improved moral

Lean is popular because it is sensible. Its principles not only can be applied to all environments, but can benefit configuration management (CM) processes as well. In addition, CM processes by their very nature, contribute to making environments more Lean.

What is CM?

Configuration Management (CM) is a set of processes that assures we have good information, are using the correct version of that information, are controlling change, know what the product is meant to conform to, and are making the right business decisions.

CM is applicable to all Life-Cycle phases and deals with requirements, documentation, parts, IDs, baselines, changes, process, workflow, tools, metrics, etc.

We need Configuration Management to avoid “waste" - to become Lean.

How can Configuration Management Help my Company Become Lean?

Good CM has everything to do with getting Lean. Most improvement initiatives like Quality, Lean, Requirements Management, CM/PLM Tools, etc. do not live up to expectations without good CM processes in place.

Because CM's role is to ensure all information we have is accurate and communication between departments is productive, CM aims to reduce redundancies, waste, and work towards continuous improvements.

Examples of how CM can Reduce Organizational Waste:

• personnel have accurate information

• everyone is working to “the right sheet of music”

• information is readily available

• everyone knows the right build configuration and which documents to use to build it

• people do not use the wrong version of documents

• purchasing buys the correct items and does not buy an item that will be obsolete next week

How can Lean Help my Company Improve our CM Processes?

Most organization’s have numerous CM processes in place, but processes can still be improved (there is always room for continuous improvement in CM).

Since there are many ways of implementing CM, our goal is to identify and implement the best processes in combination with appropriate automation strategies and tools.

Improve CM with Lean Thinking by Asking:

• Do we schedule too many CCBs/Meetings?

• Are we using manual methods of distributing changes for review?

• Do we wait too long to process a change request?

• Do the wrong people review changes? / Do we waste time trying to get the non-value added signatures?

• Do corrective action changes and urgent actions overburden the system?

• Are there defects in our change request data?

• Are change forms being rewritten because they are too complicated?

• Can people quickly find the correct information they need to do their job?

• How many documents are still not current (hanging paper) and need to be red-lined each time they are used?

• Do we have to re-enter the same data in multiple databases or redundant CM tools?

As you can see, both Lean and CM working symbiotically together can improve both systems immensely, along with the entire enterprise - saving money, reducing error, improving workflow, and enhancing productivity.

• "What is Lean" ASQ (2020)
• "What is Configuration Management?" CMPIC (2020)
• "Configuration Management Principles and Implementation Certification" CM training course content (2020)
• "Lean and PLM Software (PDF)" CM Trends eZine (issue 3, pg 10, 2009)