The Institute of Lean Management organises first-ever Lean Transformation Summit in Sri Lanka

Thursday, 4 September 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

There are a number of lean conferences, operational excellence and six sigma conferences being held around the world to promote business excellence practices within organisations. However to date, Sri Lanka has not had a conference of this nature and lean and six sigma practices have been best known within the garment sector, in Sri Lankan run and owned organisations. However, on 4 and 5 November, the Institute of Lean Management Ltd. will hold a two day conference at Waters Edge, inviting local and foreign speakers to discuss lean management.

The institute’s motto is ‘Improving Productivity, Quality, Costs, Delivery, Safety and Morale’ through lean management ‘Lean’ is a Japanese approach to management that focuses on cutting out waste, whilst ensuring quality. This approach can be applied to all aspects of a business – from design, through production to distribution. Eliminating waste along entire value streams, instead of at isolated points, creates processes that need less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products and services at far less costs and with much fewer defects, compared with traditional business systems. Companies are able to respond to changing customer desires with high variety, high quality, low cost, and with very fast throughput times. The theme of the summit is ‘Strengthening National Productivity through Lean Management’. The focus areas of the summit are: Lean concepts, how to inculcate and sustain lean culture, lean leadership, the role of human resources in lean transformation, right management infrastructure for lean, developing frontline leadership for lean, lean hospitals, lean banking, why lean transformation efforts fail at times and also Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications in lean. Over these two days of the Lean Summit, participants will be able to learn directly from lean leaders who are making real change and getting tangible and intangible results in how they deliver and pay for products and services. Through the technical papers and case studies, participants will be able to learn through knowledge sharing, from best practices, coaching, lean concepts, six sigma concepts and lean accounting. Foreign speakers are expected from Japan, the USA, Thailand, India and Pakistan. Leading manufacturing and service companies in sri lanka who have embarked on the lean journey will be sharing their experience and case studies. The Media Sponsor for the Summit is the Financial Times. The institute encourages companies to forward lean and six sigma case studies so that those who have delivered the most profitable and innovative changes can be recognised and awarded. Companies which practise lean concepts or have lean service offerings can also contact the institute at [email protected].