Why Lean Fails

Introduction
With so many organisations failing to successfully improve performance through Lean, often despite massive financial and time investments this short article explores some of the key factors that will make the difference between success and failure.

75% of Lean Programmes Fail
The first reaction to the commonly stated statistic that “75% of Lean programmes fail “ is normally to think that they perhaps only apply to certain sectors or to particular types of organisations.

Studies going back for more than 10 years have been undertaken in the UK and US across a wide range of sectors and the results appear to be remarkably consistent in that 75% or more of Lean programmes will fail irrespective of sector and size of organisation.

Underlying this fact is that many of the problems that ultimately lead to a ‘Lean failure’ can be predicted and even planned for.

Ensuring Lean Success
If it is possible to predict the success of a Lean programme, why do so many fail? Well, just because it is possible does not mean it is easy to predict success and often it is only in hindsight that many of the problems that arose could have been seen prior to the start of the implementation process.

Sometimes senior leaders believe so strongly in the vision of what they want to achieve that they cannot see the flaws in their own plans. Other programmes are doomed to failure by leaders making what they believe are minor decisions that then turn out to have a massive impact. Two examples will help to illustrate these points:

Having agreed to invest in a Lean programme, the board delegated the day to day running to a Lean Team. The decision was made that the Improvement Team would then engage the divisional directors and that they had been ‘empowered’ by the board to deliver the changes. At that point the improvement programme ceased to be a board issue.
Another organisation decided to invest in what they described an organisation wide transformation but failed to set aside any time or finance to achieve their objectives. Even those who wanted to participate in the Lean programme were told they could not be released from their day to day duties.

So what is it that the 25% of organisations who achieve their objectives through Lean are doing? Well, Figure 1 summarises the key success factors for Lean and also highlight what might happen when one (or more) of those elements is missing.

Figure 1: Successful Lean Programmes

Pressure for change – people have to understand why ‘now is the time’ for going Lean
Clear shared vision – all stakeholders need to understand where the organisation is attempting to go with Lean
Internal capability – you must, must, must have the skills to enable you to actually turn words into action
Agreed programme – the coordination of activity and linking it to the organisational strategy is key

With so many challenges ahead for healthcare organisations a structured improvement programme built around the concepts of Lean can form the basis of organisational wide transformation. However, 75% of healthcare organisations will fail to achieve the results they could achieve through Lean and you have to ask yourself why you wouldn’t want to ensure you got your money’s worth.

Accelerated Lean Skills Programme
Amnis and Training Bulletin are running a series of programmes designed to help healthcare organisations build their Lean capability. The Accelerated Lean Skills Programme is an Institute of Healthcare Management approved programme that allows participants to work on real problems whilst learning new skills at the same time.

The dates for the Accelerated Lean Skills Programme are:

2nd-4th Feb
13th-15th Apr
View full programme details

Author: Mark Eaton, Amnis

Email this page to a friend Print this page

Event Reference

Download Article

Why Lean Fails