How to Develop and Sustain a Lean Organization through the Use of Collective System Design

Abstract

Collective System Design (CSD) is a methodology for designing any enterprise system (i.e., manufacturing systems, healthcare systems, service systems, product order-to-delivery systems) to be sustainable. This chapter describes how CSD enhances lean from a comprehensive system design perspective that includes lean thinking, lean tools, and lean philosophy. The motivation for CSD is to be able to express and communicate the thinking that goes into the design of systems that include the thoughts and actions of people by creating a CSD map to express and communicate system-design objectives and the physical solution proposed to achieve each objective. The physical solutions that are expressed by the CSD map are implemented through standard work. System improvements are then made by using the Plan–Do–Check–Act (PDCA) process. Resource-allocation and investment decisions are based on achieving the objectives identified in the CSD map. Sustainability of a system with CSD results from improvement actions carried out by the people who work in the system through PDCA, and investment and resource-allocation decisions that are based on the CSD map for a defined system boundary (i.e., value stream).