Lean Project Management in Organizational Structures

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Lean Project Management
Structure of the work-
Introduction- Background, Thesis statement and the things to be covered in the memo
will be discussed (150 words)
The main body- Address the 6 questions as provided in brief, with evidence (proper
citation using journal article), headings, subheadings, bullet points can be used.
Conclusion- Summarize the findings and rephrase the thesis statement. (150 words)
References- 10 peer review articles using the CQU library. Provide links as well.
Please go through the attachments, guidelines, and briefs properly.
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To Staff
CC Board of Directors
Date 16 April 2019
Subject Understand lean project management
Introduction:
The aim of this memo is to adopt LPM into the structure of the organisation so that the
quality of the services or products can be increased. Production in an organization has always
been incurred by various challenges of continuous manufacturing and this has two bad results
such as making has become designing and projects have become an oddball form of
production. Production means making and designing the product and this is to be done via the
project, which is known as a fundamental stage of the production system. As discussed that
project is considered to be the part of the production system where the organization focuses
on maximizing the value of a product with minimization of waste and this is called Lean
Project. Construction is also one of the parts of the production system and it includes making
a movie, product development, software engineering, etc. and Lean Project Management
contribute to them.
Projects are considered to be part of the production system. Those systems are made to
deliver the product with the purpose of maximizing the value of the product and minimizing
the waste and these purposes are to be set for meeting the organizational goal as well as it is
for the effective organizational structure as well. This whole concept is known as Lean
Project. It is somewhere different from the traditional projects as it deals with the whole
organizational structure. This case study analysis will present an overall model of Lean
Project Management and with this, it will also emphasize the reason of implementing LPM,
its benefits for the organization, CSF and the process of bringing LPM in the organization so
that it can be able to take government projects as well.
Historical Background of LPM:
Lean Production the word has emerged from the research of the report named The Machine
that changed the world. Lean is called the third stage of a production system. The concept of
Lean is producing more in less time. It means this process has brought to produce more and
better vehicles in less time, in less space and labor hour is also less. Some of the new
concepts are also in the picture such as Just in Time, Pull Vs. Push mechanism etc. This
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concept has brought with the purpose of advancing work by the production system, reducing
set up items so that batch size could be made economically and increases the transparency in
an organization.
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233542312_Lean_project_management)
Theoretical Background:
It is known that the projects are which are the part of the production system are linked with
various production system from which the project is supplied, resources and information. All
the production system are linked with designing and making product and hence the whole
purpose of the production system of designing, making and improving the production system.
The main goals of a production system are to deliver the product with maximization of value
of the product and minimization of waste. The principles of production systems are structure
work for increasing the value to the generation, understanding the critique and expanding the
customer’s purposes. And the last one is to increase the system control (Shokri et. al. 2016).
Operating activities in a production system deals with planning, controlling and correcting. In
this process the work of operation is to plan a goal for the system, control refers to the control
of an advance towards the goal and the correcting means correction in planning and
controlling if required and also change the means if required in between planning and
controlling.
Objective (Reason for implementing LPM)
Lean has always been proving the best model for managing groups and teams in an
organization especially industries who deal with IT, software development and
manufacturing and constructing industries.
Implementing Lean management needs a careful and deep understanding of the theory which
is required to be understood while implementing Lean Project Management in an
organization. The organisation should find the best alternative to make it work in an
organization.
Lean Management Principles:
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There are five principles for implementing Lean Management.
Identify Value: Once it has been decided to implement Lean Management in the organization,
first of all, it is compulsory to identify the value of the team which has been made earlier and
after that, it is needed to differentiate the value add from waste activities. The value defines the
efforts on the product and what the customer is getting from that product. In the end, give value
should be given to the customers (Gudem et. al. 2013).
Map Value Stream: After identifying the value it is important to map value stream which means
visualizing the path to the customers. The organisation should map value stream by following its
steps precisely like designing, developing and testing the stages of it.
Create Flow: It is known as the key concept of Lean Management. As waiting is waste hence the
goal should be ensuring the smooth delivery from the time the order is received to the moment it
is delivered to the customer. The main purpose of this step is to create a smooth flow in the
process.
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Establish Pull: After creating a flow to a production system, establishing a pull into the system
is required, which means creating demand for the system. The goal should be to produce value to
what is required by the customers and also it should avoid overproduction. In this system, the
projects or tasks are stored in a queue. For delivering value to its customers two main factors are
there which should be kept in the mind which are the cycle time and output (Simon & Canacari,
2012).
Seek Constant Improvement: This is an integral part of Lean Management. The goal of this
step is to improve the production system and enhance the activities which generate the largest
value to its customers. Also, it should be seen that wasteful activities are not conducted.
Hence, while implementing Lean Management in an organization some of the factors are there
which should be kept in mind that will help in increasing the quality. The idea of bringing lean
management in an organization should be clear and also presentable that how it is going to be
benefitted for the whole organization. Focus on value, adds to the organization and minimizing
waste activities. Visualize value stream for the best process to provide value to the customers.
Create a smooth flow while providing value to its customers. Focus on increasing demand and
work accordingly. Adopting the best culture while improvement in the process of the production
system.
Benefits (Gained by stakeholders):
There are some benefits which are gained by stakeholders of the company while implementing
Lean Project Management in an organization. The benefits are listed below:
Employees
Here people refer to the employees and stakeholders of an organization. Each and every person in
the organization are linked to each other and everybody’s contribution is important for any work
in the production system and hence making them realize that how important their work is and for
the organization makes happiness and harmony in an organization. Hence, one benefit is bringing
happiness while implementing Lean Project Management. An alternative choice that could be
made when an employee gets stuck, this means that stakeholders help the organization to get rid
of the issues with which they are stuck and provide the alternative or solution to resolve the issue
and think in a different way to improve the quality in the production system. The main purpose of
product development is to complete the work on time. To meet the goals and doing work on time
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with the best quality is satisfying for the customers. When the employees have more control over
the project they will deliver better products.
Customers
Better Products are provided to the customers. As the organisation will have a greater knowledge
of product development it can help to make the product without wasting time and with good
decision-making capabilities the work could be done quickly (Sunder, 2016).
Government
In the real sense time is money and delivering the product on time to the customers creates profit
for the organization. The focus should be on adding value to an organization and also delivering
a product with value to the customers. When the company is in profit, it gets easy to hire more
people to carry more loads and also funds get sufficient to use more technology as well. This
helps people to perform well. As knowledge is the greatest power and with knowledge, the whole
team in an organization can manage risk and issues in the production system and also ensure the
effective quality of work together. The major work of production management is to greater
visibility. Greater visibility in the work progress, the long term, and short-term plan, risk, etc is
the priorities of greater visibility. LPM of an organization tries to bring visibility in production
system by doing the work properly and also they make the correction as well if required.
Critical Success Factors:
Identify>> Determine>> Deploy>> Measure
Critical success factors are the factors or activities which are needed for making the business
successful. The term has been used from the term business analysis. There are some factors under
critical success factors which a company should focus while making it's business successful. It
allows organizations to focus on to analyse that a firm is capable to meet CSF or not. There are
five critical success factors which have to be considered while implementing LPM in which one
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is to commit to the lean program. Sometimes practitioners in an organization think that managers
are the key factors for critical success factors but with managerial commitment, there are some
other factors that have to be kept in mind while implementing lean management. Managers
should also participate on the shop floor. This includes communications, the involvement of
team, etc (Rodríguez-Segura et. al. 2016).
Training of the workforce can be considered as the second step of critical success factor is to
train the workforce of an organization. It focuses on providing training and education in lean
production for the whole workforce. Have a plan and follow it up which means an organization
has a vision where it would be in the next coming years. Hence, this step focuses on having a
specific plan at the right time and follow up with those plans so that the plan could be executed
properly. The plan should be in step wise and those plans should be monitored wisely. Managers
should focus on integrity in their operational activities. Allocate resources and sharing of
gain/profit meaning that after having plans and executing those plan with following defined steps
it is needed to allocate resources to every person who is working on the project and once the
project gets successful it is important to give some awards and rewards to the people who
worked. Dedicating a budget for transformation is necessary.
Ensuring Critical Success Factors and Implementing LPM into the mindset of the staff
One of the steps that can be used to assure that CSF is met is to make sure that the personnel of
the organisation knows what the success factors are. The organisation could set out the success
factors to be its objectives so that whenever a project is conducted the process of LPM can be
fully achieved. The employees would have to fulfil these objectives ate each aspect of their job
roles (Rampasso et. al 2017). This would also help the organisation in implementing the LPM
into the mindset of the employees. As the employees would have to keep in mind the critical
success factors while doing their work, this will make the employees realize that the work that is
being done in the process of LPM thus increasing the quality of the work.
Another way to ensure that the critical success factors are being met is to monitor every aspect of
lean project management. By proper monitoring and analyses of the projects that are being
conducted the organisation can find out if the success factors are being done or not. At the end of
each project, it should provide to be a quality project and submitted on time. If this is not done
then it would be realised that the success factors were not used (Van Aken, 2016).
Another way to implement LPM into the mindset of the employees is to show them the benefits
of it. LPM will cause change to occur in the organisation which will bring negative changes in
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the behaviour of the employees. A meeting should be conducted with the employees so as to
show them what the advantages of using LPM especially for them.
Training required for individual staffs:
Before giving training to the staff, it needs to identify the problem and mainly identifying the all
forms of waste and this includes overproduction, inventory waste, transportation, non-value
adding process, inventory waste, motion waste, etc.
While training the employees the organisation should adopt the Kaizen method and it includes
seven phases like identifying opportunities, analyse the process, develop the solution, study
results, standardize solution and plan for future. (https://www.craftforce.com/train-your-
employees-lean-principles/)
The six steps behind effective manufacturing training programs are:
Skills available:
The available skills that the employees own need analysis, identifying and measuring the targets,
doing task analysis, creating learning objectives and performing a learner analysis.
Skills Needed:
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After designing the program the next step is to develop the manufacturing program which means
making the product by using a different method. The resources could be anything like online
training, written, verbal training and videos, etc. Also, the organisation needs to check the issues
like language issues- speaking, reading and understanding. All these things should be considered
while training the staff.
Skill Development:
This includes face to face trainers and effective training delivery, online and offline training
delivery, etc. It is important to check that manufacturing training matched to the learning needs
of the employees. Whatever the employees have been trained during his training that should be
evaluated properly. This helps the organization to improve its quality. If an employee or staff was
not able to understand the things precisely then on the basis of evaluation this could be found out
and the organisation can work again on it so that work will be affected and it will not
compromise with the quality of the product. This includes legal activities while training the staff.
This is also required for effective manufacturing training.
Continuous improvement in the training is one the most important part of the training program.
As consistency is very important for any work hence, for making the production system perfect,
improvement should be done all the time. All the feedback from customers and their staffs should
be entertained and appreciated and all the inputs should be welcomed.
Assessment Methods:
Lean is a strategy which has been developed for the improvement in an organization. It has been
created from mass production especially from Toyota Production System. It has mainly focused
on waste management. As the benefit of waste management is less effort and capital is required
for a particular work. Now lean management has become a standard for all the systematic
production system.
Lean Tools:
Lean has been comprised with various tools and techniques and the purpose of using tools and
techniques is to maximize the value of the product and minimize waste as much as the
organisation wants (Ansah & Sorooshian, 2017).
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Typical implementation:
This includes some typical implementation that is VSM, TPM, etc. These tools were not as
effective as lean management. Hence, a new technique that is LPM has been identified and now
it has become the most effective management technique for improving the quality of the product
as well as delivering the value to the customers.
Risk Management:
This particularly works for quantitative variables and hence it has been used in engineering,
finance and projects management situation. For the success of lean management, it is being
focused on the desire which is actually required.
Conclusion:
The organisation has sought to adopt LPM so that it can increase the performance thus leading to
taking projects from the government. The main target of this work was to know and analyse how
risk management methods are helpful for the implementation of Lean Project Management. And
also exploring how this has been supporting the success of Lean Project Management
implementation. These are the most critical factors to analyse in an organization. It helps a lot in
the decision-making process in the production systems as well as in an organization. In this work,
it was also seen about the tools and techniques of Lean Management which was also very
important to know. In my belief, it is very important to analyse the risk factor of a product as the
chances of reducing risk are possible when the risk is realised. Overall it can be said that lean
management is a process of reducing waste in an organization.
Yours Sincerely,
Amandeep
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