Leaning Toward Lean? Five Pitfalls to Avoid

Perhaps your campus store is considering instituting the Lean Principles as a means to improve customer service and operational efficiency, as did the Cedarville University Bookstore, Cedarville, OH. The store used lean concepts to speed up online order processing and other practices.

But before your store embarks on a lean program, Cedarville Manager Clay Ludlow has some tips to help make sure your efforts are a success.

Ludlow shared his bookstore’s foray in lean management in sessions at CAMEX22 in Louisville, KY, and in the virtual CAMEX.

The lean concept was originally developed to help identify and fix inefficiencies in manufacturing processes, eliminate defects in products, and reduce inventory of products and materials. The concept has since been expanded and adapted to almost any type of business, including collegiate retailing.

The number of principles vary depending on the scope, but typically revolve around five: Identify value; map value stream; create flow (smooth work processes); establish pull (match work effort to demand); and seek continuous improvement. Google “lean principles” and you’ll find a long list of resources on implementing the concept.

Ludlow took a master’s class in lean concepts before applying them to the store’s e-commerce processing. By carefully mapping out every step in the process, no matter how small, the store was able to see where time and effort was being wasted. For one thing, the processing team was trying to fulfill several orders simultaneously in the belief it was quicker to perform the same task (pulling merchandise, adding packing filler, etc.) at the same time. But in reality the workspace became disorganized with multiple boxes, setup for the next task took a few minutes, and it was easy to miss an ordered item.

“So we moved to a single-batch process,” Ludlow said. That meant processing one order at a time, start to finish, before moving on to the next order. “It took two-three weeks for us to normalize our operation,” with some employees wanting to return to the old process. In the end, the team was able to process more orders per hour, with fewer mistakes.

However, not all businesses trying the lean principles have found success. Ludlow shared five reasons why a lean program may fail to take off:

Not really understanding lean process management.

“Read the book,” he advised. A single article or presentation won’t provide enough detail; the book includes case studies, solutions, and other material needed in order to comprehend the full concept and apply it to your store.

Not thinking like a customer.

“You need to empathize with customers,” Ludlow said. “How can you maximize value if you don’t know customers, how they’re choosing, why they’re choosing?” When it comes to textbooks, for example, students “don’t just walk into the store and grab them.”

Not having goals to drive what you’re doing.

“Your goals are going to hold you accountable,” he said. Goals should be based on demand for your goods and services.

Not accounting for errors.

“You need to make sure you’re measuring mistakes,” he said. “Mistakes may take up a ton of time that doesn’t show up in the risk analysis.” At first his store couldn’t figure out why workers were marking certain textbooks as out of stock when the inventory report showed copies on hand. By running through the process of pulling books, they discovered employees sometimes assumed there were no more copies on bottom shelves; in actuality the stack had been pushed back out of view. So they placed bright orange stickers at the rear of each shelf and trained workers to carefully check bottom shelves. Only if they could see the sticker was the title truly out of stock.

Not revisiting the lean process.

“You should be reviewing periodically. Lean is never done,” Ludlow said. Over time, variables change and processes need to be tweaked. He suggested reevaluating every two years.