Lean Methodology

Wipro - Turning Lean

Lean Methodology, which is all about improving operating efficiency by eliminating waste, was introduced in the production system by Toyota. To turn a Knowledge operation into a lean system was what WIPRO tried to implement and was successful at it.

Wipro was faced with three major challenges in 2004, lack of skilled labor, high turnover and increased competition from its rivals. In order to eliminate these, it decided to adopt lean techniques in its operations. But this was a tedious task since no other software company had implemented it and Wipro had to start from scratch by analysis the lean process in production.

Here is a brief on the facts:

Parameters No. of projects that used lean techniques No. of projects that were implemented without lean techniques

772 1111

Quality No Change No Change

Time 5% less time than anticipated Finished at the forecasted time

Cost 9% Under Budget 2% Under budget

Wipro followed a five step process in turning lean:

Waste Elimination: Waste leads to inefficiency, meaning reduced productivity. Many techniques like laddering( asking a series of Why questions and building upon each answer), identifying the size of the waste and trying to eliminate not only big wastes, but small ones that happen on daily basis, which might build up to contribute significantly, have been adopted.

Specification: Specification is the most important part of any software project. An SRS is prepared for every project at the outset to get the exact picture of the project flow. Wipro also implemented process standardization by identifying the repeatable parts and codifying them.

Structured Communication: Wipro used DSM (Design structure matrix), to define the level of communication required for a certain project. This helped in ranking tasks and identifying team interactions. It also stressed on, facts to be given more importance in the decision making process, then opinions.

Resolving problems quickly and directly: One standard rule was followed. Problem creator is solely responsible to solve it as well. This helped the problem creator to better understand the problem and not repeat it again. Also it is best to solve problems as and when they occur, rather than keeping it for later.

Incremental approach: Wipro did not, at once implement the lean technique on all the 772 projects. It started off small. Only 10 projects were launched with a lean approach to make sure if it was a feasible option. It followed the marketing principle of Doing first "Do, Make sense of it, Repeat if successful, discard otherwise!!". Keeping track of what went wrong and where is also very important.