Level 3 Candidates Success

Congratulations to the latest successful Level 3 programme candidates who have been awarded the LCS Level 3 Certificate of Lean Competency, having completed their submission of evidence demonstrating their strategic and transformational implementation capability and in-depth appreciation of lean and related CI knowledge.

Paul Macklam, MLGS Consultancies Ltd.

Paul has worked in Continuous Improvement roles for the last 30 years. He has been a management consultant for more than half of this time, and prior to this his career was in electronics and automotive manufacturing. He is currently working as an independent consultant and is heading up a team of Operational Excellence specialists within a major insurer’s offshore back office location. Paul has used lean within many of his engagements developing methodologies to work with new areas within Financial Services, such as risk, research and analytics, and HR, which at the time were seen as “not having a process”.

Paul’s assignment concentrated on the evolution of lean from his early manufacturing career to the present day, reflecting on these experiences and how they have now shaped his current approach. The main themes of how to start lean with sustainability, keeping things simple at an implementation phase, and how to empower employees to embed the changes were investigated. How to “do Lean” within offshore locations is an area that Paul is continuing to develop and he intends sharing these experiences in a future blog on this forum. Finally, one of the key learnings Paul had was that lean is a degradable skill, and that maintaining the most up to date thinking is essential for independent consultants.

Josina Bowering, HM Revenue and Customs

Josina, Head of Continuous Improvement, joined the civil service in 1990 and has worked in a variety of roles in the Inland Revenue and HM Revenue and Customs including debt management, tax compliance, policy development and strategic leadership.  In 2014 she was appointed as the head of HMRC PaceSetter to steer HMRC’s use of Lean and continuous improvement and, in 2015, to bring together a team of expert PaceSetter resources to support the transformation of HMRC’s services to customers and to share HMRC’s continuous improvement approach with other government departments.

A key theme in Josina’s submission was ‘Learning to Adapt not Adopt’ – especially in relation to HMRC’s CI journey, and the importance of continuously improving your approach to CI, which are manifested in HMRC’s ‘One Deal Principles’, namely straight talking, valuing people, organisational purpose, continuous improvement, people development and work-life balance.

James Cuthbert, KPMG

James is a Senior Manager at KPMG, leading their global Operational Excellence methodologies, specialising in lean management systems. James focuses in healthcare, but has worked across multiple sectors including nuclear decommissioning, power and utilities, telecommunications, aerospace, operations, manufacturing and defence. James has an MEng in Mechanical Engineering and previously worked at BAE Systems where he learnt lean manufacturing techniques and since then he has developed his understanding of lean management and holistic transformation methodologies.

James’ cases focused on the developing maturity of lean programmes from step change efforts to integrated change programmes, identifying that along the way there is a need to ensure a balance between the improvement targets and developing the routines to drive culture change and that discontinuous step change without buy-in, ownership and ongoing maintenance will not result in long term sustainable performance improvement.

James’ observations concluded that the ‘soft systems’ elements of a lean management system were critical to engage participants through the ability to give them purpose, autonomy and the ability to develop.  James concluded that any organisation aiming for sustainable improvement needs a system that can provide clear direction, clear operational structures to work within, the right attitude and mindset to drive improvement, the abilities necessary to be able to improve and to involve people within the business to improve.

Sarah Wooledge, BBC

Sarah has been working in lean and improvement for 20 years, starting in aerospace and working her way through nuclear, automotive, banking and healthcare. Sarah enjoys working in industries new to lean thinking and she is now playing a key role in rolling out the BBC’s innovative continuous improvement initiatives.

Sarah’s diverse sectoral experience has provided her with unique insights into how lean can be successfully implemented and she has concluded that the critical factors for success are being mindful of the culture (adapt not adopt), working on the leaders, using the right language, measuring the right things, knowing when to be patient or impatient and keeping up the energy. With regard to the next stage in lean’s journey, then she sees there is a great potential for lean to be applied at an individual level.