The Lean Thinking and Practice Australasian Summit, held this year on 6-7 May in Melbourne, is an annual opportunity for Lean practitioners and theorists in Australasia to think more deeply on the principles and practice of the management theory and to learn from the challenges and case studies presented.
Quite helpfully, one of the presenters summarised Lean, from her company’s perspective. She said they strove to:
- Reduce and eliminate waste in all its forms
- Work smarter not harder
- Commit to improving processes and making them stick.
(It is pretty hard to argue that this should not be the objectives of every enterprise!)
The key note speaker was Mr John Shook, the author of a number of key books in this area, including Learning To See and Managing To Learn.
The introductory session was led by Deshamanya Mahesh Amalean, chairman of MAS Holdings, a supplier to Nike, Victoria’s Secret and Speedo, with factories in 10 countries. Mr Amalean shared his insights and lessons learnt from starting up the business in 1986 with his two brothers and $20,000 through to his success today, where his company has revenue of more than US$1 billion. He explained how his organisation applied Lean thinking and practice and the impact it has had on his company.
Principal Mr Mark Streeter said it was a valuable conference to challenge and help Streeterlaw “think more deeply and a bit differently” about how we can provide our clients with excellent legal services.
“We are always keen to see how we can improve our business processes and practices and I was encouraged to come away knowing we are certainly on the right track. But we can always do more and I am keen to ensure our clients get the best and most cost-effective service available,” he said.
