by Laurie West of Westco International LTD shown at Lean Summit 2012 - Learning - Educating - Sharing on 27/28 November

1. Policy Deployment Lean Summit Laurie West November 2012
POLICY DEPLOYMENT; FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1. Does the PD process need to start at the very top of the organisation or can it
begin in the middle?
2. What if the Executive Group has not communicated the strategy to my
department or Company?
3. When should the process start?
4. How do I deal with a boss that “does not get it”?
5. How do I deal with a boss that keeps giving me new goals?
6. How do I deal with detractors in my team?
7. Does implementing P.D. require organisational change?
8. How do I know if the message is really getting through (down and up) the
organisation?
9. How do I select appropriate kpi’s (or metrics) for each objective and the selected
projects to deliver them?
10.How, where and when should I conduct review meetings and at what frequency?
11.Should the achievement of objectives be linked to financial incentives?
12.How do I link our personal appraisal system to P.D?
13.How do I get people in other departments to comply with required actions if they
do not work directly for me? (Especially sales and marketing!)
14.How do we give people freedom to operate but remain aligned with the
objectives and without compromising procedures?
15.How do I get all the monthly reporting post-mortems and other ad hoc business
requests (the day job) completed as well as the PD actions?
16.How do we demonstrate that this is not just another management fad?
Link toPD

2. Policy Deployment Lean Summit Laurie West November 2012
SUMMARY OF LESSONS LEARNED
• Remember it is all about following the simple (but difficult to do) Demming
scientific method, PDCA Plan, do, check, act, cycle.
• PD is a process not an event
• It helps to understand the org. structure before the PD event. (Managing the value
stream is always best.)
• When possible, visit the work areas and take a gemba walk before the PD event.
• If the plant has a PD matrix already, study it before the walk and see if you can
see evidence of the hard connection during the tour.
• Before the PD try to understand the business/plant critical issues. Reference to
any audits and VSM outputs will help.
• When planning projects try and level the work load AND difficulty, evenly over
the year/ period.
• Try and see the correlation of project deliverables to the business kpi’s. of profit,
cash and market share. End of year cost roll ups can result in giving savings away
if these changes are not captured and recognised.
• Consider carefully the lead and lag kpi’s you will adopt.
• Strive for simplicity and transparency. Charts are only there to foster
improvement. Test that assertion.
• Be aware that savings can be squeezed from one area only to pop out in another.
(Consignment stock can be an example of this unless waste is removed from the
entire value stream. You end up paying somewhere!)
• The most common reason for failure is because Management are not able to see
the connection to the bottom line; therefore they do not review regularly and in
turn do not insist on updating as the situation changes. It is a live document.
Second reason for failure, there is not the courage or leadership to de select some
seemingly worthy projects.
• Consider the governance issues of conflicting incentive systems.