Lean Manufacturing in Sri Lankan Context
In Asia, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, and India were early adopters of Lean thinking. However, it was only in the last decade that we saw a significant interest towards Lean manufacturing in Sri Lankan context. There are few companies in Apparel, FMCG, Automobile, Tele-communications and IT that embraced Lean practices initially in Sri Lanka (and they grew to be the industry leaders in the country), but the rest were considerably late to adopt.
However, the recent events in the global and local environment have forced us to look for the best solutions and adopt them for survival. Increasing costs of Raw Material, Human Capital, Real Estate, Logistics, Energy, Taxes, and all other overhead costs has urged us to be innovative, efficient and error proof.
However, the recent events in the global and local environment have forced us to look for the best solutions and adopt them for survival. Increasing costs of Raw Material, Human Capital, Real Estate, Logistics, Energy, Taxes, and all other overhead costs has urged us to be innovative, efficient and error proof.
When Sri Lankan organizations adopted Lean concepts, a completely new approach in doing things, it created a huge knowledge and skill gap in human resources. In last 2 decades, many major organizations hired professional consultants from US, UK, and Japan to train local professionals to bridge this gap. Some companies even depended 100% on those foreign entities to implement Lean practices in their companies. Subsequently, selected local professionals were trained, certified, and empowered to lead the continuous roll out of the concept.
Over the years, these Lean practitioners have proven to be efficient and innovative solution providers across the industries. It is a proven fact now that employees who has knowledge, skill, and competency in Lean Manufacturing, are better equipped to handle day to day tasks and be effective problem solvers. A right product or a service is a result of Man, Machine and Material going through a set of pre-determined Processes which can be recognized as the Operating System of a company. On time delivery, Quality and Cost of the product or service produce is depended on the capability and reliability of the set processes. Processes also impact on employee safety, morale, and satisfaction of their job. A satisfied employee with a positive attitude is an innovator for the business.
In the modern VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world, it is essential for organizations to have a Vision, Understanding, Courage and Adaptability (VUCA 2.0) to be sustainable and achieve the triple bottom line (TBL) of the business. Having reliable and capable PROCESSES, developing PEOPLE to be systematic problem solvers will ultimately create a PRODUCT or SERVICE that has the right competitive advantage in the market.