Four Principles | Lean Management Experts

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Gathering of 50+ Saudi Arabian business leaders shows the advance of Kaizen principles

Overview

Distilled from the ground-breaking business philosophy that set Toyota on the path to global success, Lean Management is far more than a management consultancy toolkit. Instead, it is a profound change of corporate culture, from the bottom of your organisation to the top, that perceives value from the customer’s perspective and gears everything you do towards optimising that value. It is the foundation of a long-term process of continuous improvement that will transform your business.

Developed in the automotive world, the beauty of Lean Management is that it applies equally well across all business sectors. Reducing lead time, supply chain management, improving quality, cutting costs and enhancing the motivation of your people… every change that Lean brings about must satisfy one key criterion: it must benefit the customer.

A Lean business model is the embodiment of our philosophy: “Kaizen. Zero waste implemented!” Not cost-cutting for its own sake, but the process of putting into practice long term, sustainable efficiencies that increase profitability at the same time as improving value for your customer.

You might call it a win-win. We call it Lean Management.

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Significant Lead Time Improvements

Transfer of vehicles from and to branches dropped from 15 days to 1 day and the insurance approval lead time from 7 days to half a day

Hani Alsaleh, CEO Arabian Hala (AVIS)
Reduced lead times

We were able to reduce our lead times by 43%, which means we were able to produce almost the same amount of products in half the time

Sinan Al Saady, Vice-Chairman
Sustainable cost reduction

We achieved product cost reductions of up to 7% and have also reduced our inventory over 60%

Wadah Ali, Plant Manager
The Perfect Store

Today, the entire Zohoor Alreef team has understood through Lean that the “Perfect Store” is a shared aspiration that can only be achieved through Kaizen or continuous improvement.

Jim Ragsdale, Chief Executive Officer
A Clear Structured Approach

With Lean we are now structured and work systemically and that ensures quality, besides efficiency and productivity

Marcel Grünenfelder, Managing Director
Unlocking potential

We were able to achieve something that we thought is beyond our abilities

Sinan Al Saady, Vice-Chairman CGS Group Saudi Arabia
Retail Sector Sustainable Improvements

The in-store inventory was reduced by over 30% while maintaining an availability of core items of over 99%

Waleed Alkhaldi, Chairman
Space Reduction

We were able to achieve a 47% space reduction in our production areas and warehouses

Nasser Gharama, General Manager Lamina
Improved on-time delivery

We improved on-time delivery to the guests by 113%

Bernd Schwendtke, Senior Managing Director
The real success

We can now produce for customers based on demand, and this ability and flexibility allows us to save time and money. That’s the real success here

Sinan Al Saady, Vice-Chairman CGS Group Saudi Arabia
Better Space Utilization

We managed to reduce our inventory which resulted in a 28% space reduction in the distribution center and the branches

Ahmad Almoliki, Business Development Manager
Short delivery times

We improved the preparation time for home delivery orders and dropped it from 31 minutes to 16 minutes

Eng. Abdulsalam A. Alarify, VP Business Development
IMPROVED NPS

Final result was that our sales net promoter score increased by 25% and the service net promoter score increased by 5%

Dr. Khalid Alkarimy, Managing Director, Operations
Improved manpower utilization

We have managed to avoid losses of over 300 productive manpower hours per month

Aiman Al-Masri, President and Chief Executive Officer
Astonishing improvements

Take-out customer wait times dropped from over 20 min to below 2 min

Eng. Abdulsalam A. Alarify, VP Business Development
Increased output

We have increased our output from that machine by 20% and the availability of the machine by 32%

Aiman Al-Masri, President and Chief Executive Officer
Reduced customer waiting times

We reduced the time the customer spent waiting in our reception area by 55%

Bernd Schwendtke, Senior Managing Director
Continuous improvement

We have completed implementation of the Lean principles on more than 50% of our machines. Our indicators are very positive with machine output varying between 17% and almost 90% improvement

Aiman Al-Masri, President and Chief Executive Officer