Visibility and standardisation create superior results for Solar Lean has created impressive results within Solar across functions and national borders. Today, all Solar activities have one overall aim: Creating value for the customer! During the autumn of 2006, Solar’s group management carried out a survey among the employees. The survey showed that the value they created for the customers, themselves or the organisation was not clear to Solar’s employees. Nor was the value created by the management clear to the employees. How do I create value? ”It was definitely a problem. In my opinion, visibility regarding the meaning and the effect of the work you do is decisive for any employee’s job satisfaction, regardless which type of job you have”, says Flemming Tomdrup. That was one reason why Solar chose to introduce lean as an integrated part of the group’s management model. It was done under the name Solar Lean Way. Alignment of processes The other reason was a major wish to create closer ties and synergies among the individual countries by means of standardised working methods. ”The same task was handled very differently in each country and by the individual employees. In our opinion, great advantages could be obtained from ”aligning” the processes across national borders. We also expected the standardisation of processes to facilitate the 2 implementation of the new, centralised IT solution which we were planning to introduce,” says Flemming Tomdrup. The aim was to introduce standardised processes, thus also introducing a common language and mindset for all employees and managers across Solar companies in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland. Management and commitment According to Flemming Tomdrup, two principles have been decisive for Solar’s lean implementation. One is a focus on management from day one; the other is the focus on involving local organizations and employees so that they will fundamentally take on the responsibility for their own improvements. He says, ”We have focussed on changing our management style. A bit simplified, you could say that the managers used to be competent professional specialists, who were able to dictate all the right answers to the employees. Today, managers focus on training the employees and the organisation to find their own solutions to the problems”. Solar has introduced systematic training of all managers in lean management and lean principles. The group has also trained a team of lean agents both at group level and in the individual countries who provide support and give advice to the managers in the day-to-day improvement work. At the same time, Solar has introduced a management evaluation tool. The latest management evaluation shows improvements of between 50-200% for the managers who have been involved in lean. Consistency and long-term perspective In 2007, Solar’s top management decided to go for lean. The top management believed that this was the right method for the group in order to achieve the improvements and create the value for the customers which Solar wants. The results confirm that this was correct. ”Lean has improved our competitiveness considerably. We have created great results within productivity, quality, time-to-market, cultural development, customer focus, employee satisfaction, etc.”, says Flemming Tomdrup. Valcon has assisted Solar all the way from strategy through the establishment of lean tools to management training and execution support. Benny Madsen, Valcon Director, says, ”There is no doubt that one of the reasons why Solar Lean Way has achieved such good results is that lean was not seen as a project but as the creation of a new culture. It is lean with a longterm perspective. Flemming Tomdrup, Group CEO, Solar
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