Thomas Foods - Innovation Team Professional Development - Lean Manufacturing Leadership Course

Summary

​An industry wide culture of continuous improvement, innovation and increased professionalism will ensure that the Australian red meat industry continues to succeed in today's complex business environment.  Building the skills and knowledge of individuals and enterprises throughout the value chain are the key to sustaining productivity and competitive advantage.

Within the structure of the MLA collaborative innovation strategies program a fundamental aspect is the professional development of those managing innovation within the client business. It is well recognised within contemporary innovation management theory the value and importance of continual exposure of practitioners to best practice. To this point it remains vital that both the clients Innovation Manager/s and their immediate superior are continually professionally developed in the area of innovation capability.  This may include, but is not limited to, participation in the MLA innovation network; attendance at relevant training programs (either organised by MLA or via external providers); study tours; attendance at conferences; and formal study. Although primarily aimed at the client Innovation Manager, some of this budget may be used to further develop the Innovation Managers immediate superior if the outcome of such investment results in the Innovation Manager being more effective. Within the structure of the MLA collaborative innovation strategies program there is the opportunity for MLA to co fund these activities. 

Objectives

The objective of this project was for a number of senior T&R managers to attend a introductory workshop at University of South Australia to investigate the practicality of adopting a lean manufacturing methodology as a platform in managing continuous improvements and operational innovations throughout their business.

The identified workshop that T&R attended provides insights into what a true lean enterprise is, the different elements that must be addressed, where T&R are positioned on the lean journey and an introduction to a framework to consider how the organisation can move to a truly lean enterprise.
Workshop topics included;

• Lean principles and putting them into practice
• Understanding customer value
• Key elements of a lean organisation
• Strategy alignment and deployment
• Lean maturity assessment
• The extended enterprise
• Employee engagement
• The lean iceberg model
• Case studies on sustainable change

Key findings

The participationby a group of senior T& R Pastoral representatives in the University of South Australia Lean leadership workshop (August 2012) to gain an elementary understanding of the Lean methodology principles and how the methodology could be implemented within the T & R business as a component of their enterprise innovaiton management system through which they were able to investigate the practicality of adopting aspects of the methodology as a platform in managing continuous improvements and operational innovations throughout their business. Subsequent to this workshop a number of lean manufacturing principals were adpted which focused specifically on removing waste from business processes to improve productivity, quality and safety.