Award Pin Badges Arrive

LCS pin badges are now available for practitioners through accredited organisations or via the LCS Shop from September

Signalling Achievement

Designed for lean practitioners in all roles with LCS Certificates of Lean Competency, these exclusive enamel pin badges feature the special LCS award design, which includes the logo and level identifier. There are award badges for each of the seven LCS levels –  plus there’s an LCS logo badge for general use.

Design Precision

The award badge logo lettering is in silver on the LCS dark blue background. The award lettering is white, on the LCS Level blue background, with different shades of blue for each level, while the entire badge is edged in silver. The brochure style fixing on the award badges provides horizontal stability when attached to clothing, while the logo badge has a tie tack fixing.

Heritage

Over 180 years of production experience lies behind the badges, which have been produced in the heart of the British manufacturing industry in Birmingham by W.O. Lewis (Badges) Limited and have been made using traditional craft skills, combined with expert enamelling, printing and manufacturing techniques.

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“LCS Approved” Launched

The LCS has launched a new ‘seal of approval’ service for businesses that supply products, services, systems or technologies to organisations with lean operating systems and that are committed to developing a lean culture.

Overall Proposition

Called LCS Approved, it involves an applicant demonstrating that its product or service has a significant and positive impact on those factors that are considered to be critical to developing a lean organisation. There are 20 factors, termed Lean Enterprise Characteristic Statements, which have been developed from a range of key sources, including the ten Shingo Model principles, Liker’s 14 principles of the Toyota Way and Womack and Jones’ Five Lean Principles. The process also involves a detailed scrutiny of its features and benefits and corroboration of the owners claims by actual users.

Products and services that are awarded the two year LCS Approved licence are able to promote their status  which should provide important reassurance to potential users that their investment in supporting infrastructure will be compatible with their lean enterprise aspirations.

Development

LCS Approved has been developed, test and piloted with ActiveOps, a global leader in operations performance management, which has become the first company to have one of its products – the Workware Operations Performance Management software – awarded LCS Approved status.

The LCS will continue to refine and test the LCS Approved methodology, as well as examine its application to a range of products and services, which is likely to lead to further refinements and versions being developed to cater for a variety of market and operational environments.

Strategic Rationale

Commenting on the development LCS Director, Simon Elias, said:

“The LCS Approved initiative is a logical extension of the LCS service range and addresses the crucial question of the lean legitimacy of those products and services that are used to underpin and support operations.

The approval process aims to ensure that a product’s design and architecture embraces lean principles and systems thinking, which is critical for any services, systems or technologies used to underpin lean operational practices.

If they do not, there is a danger they not only undermine lean efforts, but could also create a barrier to lean-oriented change that many be hard to remove, thus delaying or even ending progress on the organisation’s CI journey.”

See the LCS Approved Webpages.

National Grid Accreditation

Congratulations to National Grid for their recent LCS accreditation – and for being the first utility company in the world to achieve direct LCS accreditation.

National Grid is an international electricity and gas company based in the UK and north-eastern US. With over 27,000 employees it plays a vital role in connecting millions of people safely, reliably and efficiently to the energy they use.

Being at the heart of one of the greatest challenges facing our society – delivering clean energy to support our world long into the future, National Grid has focused on Performance Excellence and building its lean capability over the last 3 years to deliver a competitive advantage for its shareholders and promote the development and implementation of sustainable, innovative and affordable energy solutions.

The awarding of LCS accreditation serves to further highlight National Grid’s commitment to leveraging a best practice approach whilst also providing external recognition for its Performance Excellence professionals who play a vital role in driving forward their Continuous Improvement journey. In awarding the accreditation, LCS noted:

• National Grid’s submission was well organised and demonstrated high levels of professionalism, with all system components in place.
• The lean training system is considered to have several strong features, including its strong strategic alignment and a focused Centre of Excellence providing appropriate structure to manage and promote CI knowledge and practices.
• The Performance Excellence Journey is considered to provide a robust CI framework, founded on key CI principles, with the five core practices providing both direction and cohesion and there is appropriate emphasis on practical application of knowledge to provide real business benefits. In addition, the recognition of behavioural change is seen as a strong feature.
• Of particular note is the system’s digital support and resource facility, which is considered best in class, covering areas such as communication, enrolment, evaluation, resources and learner support, which helps ensure that the supporting processes themselves are lean in character and contribute to the system’s overall effectiveness.”

National Grid’s Chief Executive Officer, John Pettigrew said:

“The energy sector is going through the most significant revolution in a generation as politicians, regulators and the industry looks to respond to the shift to low carbon solutions and customers seek to take increasing control of their energy needs. Performance Excellence is pivotal in helping us ensure that we have the capability to continuously improve, respond to these new customer needs and position national grid for a very different future.”

Webinar: Mental Health in the Workplace

“Out in the Open – The Importance of Considering Mental Health in the Workplace”

Webinar Schedule

Date: Friday, 25th November 2016. Start Time: 9.30 am GMT. Duration: 60 minutes

Attendance: Virtual or physical (latter at Cardiff Business School)

Registration: Click to register. Free attendance. Capacity: 60 physical, 250 virtual

Presenter: Dr Hadar Elraz, Cardiff Business School

Overview

Recent research has suggested that mental health problems in the work place are significant and impact motivation, performance and commitment to the workplace. The ‘respect for people’ principle is a cornerstone of the continuous improvement approach and with it comes a commitment to not only look after the physical welfare of staff but also their mental well-being,

This webinar offers the opportunity to learn about the latest Cardiff University research in mental health and well-being in the workplace from Dr Hadar Elraz, who specialises in employment and mental health.

Attend this Webinar to Learn

• About the variety of misconceptions that currently exist in the workplace in terms of employee’s mental health.
• How to manage mental health in the workplace.
• About the type of work situations which start to create problems, such as performance management activities.
• How to understand different experiences in depth and the variety of tactics to tackle these different experiences that can help to reduce mental health problems.
• How organisations can take a progressive approach to enabling a supportive culture which promotes productivity by adopting radical model of change, where people with mental health conditions work with senior managers to lead a path of improvement.
• The range of strategies that can be adopted to change culture and increase employee satisfaction, commitment and productivity at work.

Who Should Attend

• Human resource managers
• Line managers
• Continuous improvement managers
• Academics with an interest in mental health and employment
• Employees with an interest in mental health

About the Presenter

Dr Hadar Elraz, Cardiff Business School

Hadar’s research interests span organisational studies, public services as well as health and disability at work. Having worked as part of a collaborative research team with Cardiff Business School, Welsh Government and consultancy organisations, Hadar has been engaged in exploring some of the key issues in the management, regulation and improvement of public services in Wales and England.

She is currently engaged in exploring invisible disability in the workplace, mental health at work, and is disseminating the findings from her own research project on mental health and employment. The research utilised critical research methods to address some of the growing concerns over mental health at work and to explore identity matters for people with mental health conditions. The study offers both practical and theoretical implications for policymakers, researchers and service users.

Whist working on her academic publications, Hadar has been involved in delivering practice based presentations for members of the public in a range of settings and for different audiences such as: the Welsh Government, mental health networks, specialised disability and employment organisations and the NHS.

First Southern Hemisphere Accreditation

Congratulations to the National Australia Bank (NAB) for their recent LCS accreditation – and for being the first organisation, and bank, in the Southern Hemisphere to achieve direct LCS accreditation.

NAB is one of the four largest financial institutions in Australia, with 35,000 employees servicing more than 10 million customers around the world. It has a strong Lean and process transformation capability, having started its Lean-oriented improvement journey back in 2004.  In awarding the accreditation, LCS noted:

• the high level of professionalism in NAB’s training system and the robust management framework in place as part of its centralised Academy training function and facilities.
• how the NAB has continued to augment its strong training foundations in Lean and Six Sigma, with an increased focus on customer-centred design and operational excellence.

Executive General Manager, Process Design and Transformation, Damon Dermody, said:

“We are delighted to have received our LCS accreditation.  We believe that this is the first step towards us achieving our aspiration of having the best process design capability in our sector.  More broadly, uplifting our process transformation capabilities will help us to deliver a better experience for our customers and ultimately support us to deliver on our vision as Australia and New Zealand’s most respected bank.”

Lean Company Visits in the UK

The LCS is pleased to be collaborating with Onsite Insights, a leading organiser of best practice company visits, and offering members of the LCS community discounted rates on lean company visits.

The programme of visits to award-winning companies enables visitors to see best practice in action. No theory, no text books, just what works and why, direct from organisations that have achieved success. Each visit includes presentations from the site operations team, interactive workshop and a site tour to see best practice in action.

Forthcoming Visits

7 September:

Fujifilm Speciality Ink Systems, Broadstairs

Topics covered: Lean, Continuous Improvement & Quality, People Development, Project Management

14 September:

Entek International, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

Topics covered: Lean Manufacturing, People & Leadership

15 September:

Buhler Sortex, London

Topics covered: Lean & Continuous Improvement, Engaging People in Lean

20 September:

Milliken Industrial, Bury

Topics covered: Lean, Continuous Improvement, Quality, Supply Chain, People & Leadership

21 September:

Pfizer, Havant

Topics covered: Lean, Continuous Improvement, Hoshin Planning, Supply Chain & Logistics

29 September:

Eaton Crouse-Hinds, Sheerness

Topics covered: Lean Manufacturing, Engaging Teams

What participants say…

• “Far better than workshops & courses” Arla Foods
• “Thought provoking & relevant” Siemens
• “One of the principle tasks for today’s manufacturer is CI; and one of the best ways to experience first-hand the application of lean tools and techniques is this first class programme of visits.” Oxford Instruments

More Information

For more information on each of the visits please contact Ailsa via ailsa@onsiteinsights.co.uk, visit the Onsite Insight website or call 023 9246 8978. These visits cost between £295 – £345 plus VAT per person and LCS community members can receive a 15% discount.