The core idea of a lean organizational structure is to minimize the waster while maximizing customer value, or in other words, a lean organizational structure creates high customer value within limited resources. The focus of lean organizational structure is on customer value and its major processes so that it could be increased continuously. Proving perfect customer value is the ultimate goal of lean organizational structure through a process of perfect value creation having zero waste. Lean thinking, in order to accomplish this, changes the organizational management focus from vertical departments, assets, and optimizing separate technology to optimizing products and services flow via whole value streams that horizontally flow across assets, technologies, and departments to customers (Goetsch & Davis, 2004). The essay aims to highlight the importance of lean organization structure along with its benefits that help businesses to increase their value among customers.

Lean Organizational Structure as a Mean of Increasing Business Values

                Instead of the isolated points, waster elimination along whole value streams forms establishes process in which less space, less effort of human, less time, and less capital is required to make services and products with much fewer defects and at far less cost; this ultimately increases the business value among customers as compare to traditional business systems. Through a lean organizational structure, businesses can quickly respond to changing customer wants with low cost, high quality, and fast throughput times (Goetsch & Davis, 2004).

The waste is something that does not add any value. The customers never like to pay for anything or any action that does not add any value to what customers want. The wasted are included in the product cost, either reducing the organizational profit or inflating the price being paid. Inventory, motion, defects, overproduction, poor process, transportation, and waiting are the seven main types of waste. The 5S system is the problem-solving tool that is used to eliminate them systematically. 5S is the way of thinking or philosophy that focuses on managing and organizing the workplace and eliminates the seven wastes along with safety and quality improvement. Sort, set, shine, standardize and sustain are the components of 5S (Wheeler, 2014).

                In particular, the healthcare organization has found a useful approach to improve health quality and reduce cost, along with customer satisfaction. The seven types of wastes are very common in healthcare and practitioners of healthcare can target those specific types of wastes through the 5S system. Inventory waste is very common in the healthcare sector that includes expired medication, excess bedside equipment, pre-printed forms and overstocked consumables. 5S system is helpful to eliminate the wastes in healthcare; healthcare needs to sort the unnecessary goods that are not being used for a long time and identify the outdated or expired items. Physician preference items can be eliminated for the surgeons. Basic visual management needs to be organized in hospitals such as signs, labelling, and pictures of specific equipment. After sorting everything, everything should be cleaned, and while cleaning, the hospital management needs to observe everything that needs to be fixed. Standard protocols need to be developed in hospitals for monitoring and maintaining the sorting and straightening process. Healthcare sector needs to ensure the ongoing process of 5S. Sustain is the most difficult step of 5S (Wheeler, 2014).

                The retail industry is another industry that is engaged in different wastes. Retails are the goods' sales to the public for consumption or use in relatively small quantities. Inventory and over-production are the most common wastes in the retail industry. The retail industry needs to focus on the 5S system to overcome the wastes. Retail industry need to distinguish between the things that are needed, and those that are not needed, only needed materials should be kept at the sites of job, and all the unneeded items need to be immediately thrown away. Orderliness needs to be maintained as the second S; retails industry needs to put all the things in the designated areas, and right order, all the information, and materials need to be stored in the orderly fashion. All the things need to be organized according to the frequency. Cleanliness needs to be properly maintained, and everything should be neat and clean so that problems can be visibly identified and while sweeping clean, minor defects should not be ignored. Equipment, tools, and job sited should be cleaned immediately after the use of clean equipment runs better. Retail industry should follow and use the standard procedures; all the rules and regulations should be followed along with the safety procedures (Goetsch & Davis, 2004).

              Lean makes the companies able to apply a minimum viable product (MVP) development methods. The main point of the MVP strategy is to collect and investigate customer reviews to figure out whether they desire the product and willing to purchase it or not. It implements a distribution of a product with a merest and an acceptable set of features to gain satisfaction from the previous users. To get knowledge of the customers’ natures, tastes, and demands are the crucial keys to produce the product which will get commercially successful. From this knowledge, the developer will able to design a guideline for the next development (Gunal, 2012).

Conclusion on Lean Organizational Structure

                In a nutshell, Lean assumed to work well for limited and short-term activities as a result of their brief life cycles since Lean does require ongoing feedback from the customers, and it will operate approximately with the support of customer itself during the project realization. Another part which also takes an essential role in the approval of Lean is that the whole team should act together at the same time to make the communication easily. It is known to adopt effectively by big famous construction companies such as Nike, Ford, Intel, and the principles of Lean are also being operated in other industries as well. The companies which mentioned to apply Lean software engineering practices into their processes are mentioned like Corbis, PatientKeeper, and Xerox.

References of Lean Organizational Structure

Goetsch, D. L., & Davis, S. B. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Gunal, V. (2012). Agile Software Development Approaches and Their History. SDA Software Engineering Research Group.

Wheeler, C. (2014, February 17). Eliminating 7 Types of Waste with 5S Methodology. Retrieved from https://www.newcastlesys.com/blog/bid/336185/eliminating-7-types-of-waste-with-5s-methodology