Bob Trebilcock

Is it time to put your IT department on a diet?
January 17, 2008

It’s still January, and about a month before the Super Bowl. That means I’m still reaching for the carrot sticks instead of the Doritos. Like every January, I’m convinced that 2008 is the year I’ll get lean.

Kevin Prouty, senior director of manufacturing solutions for Motorola, is convinced that IT departments, especially in manufacturing plants and distribution centers, could benefit from lean thinking as well. He calls IT the 8^th Hidden Waste, a concept that any manufacturer that has transformed its operations using lean techniques will understand.

“IT organizations are not run as lean departments, even in lean companies,” says Prouty. “They tend to solve most IT issues by throwing money and servers at the problem. If you ran your manufacturing operations the same way, you’d go out of business.”

What’s the problem? “If I was jaded and cynical,” Prouty told me, “I’d say that IT departments think they’re above the fray.”

Prouty understands this kind of talk won’t get him an invitation to any IT Super Bowl parties, but he’s willing to back up his premise with examples.

“What happens when you buy a new software application for the plant or the warehouse that requires a server?” he asks. “If you were thinking lean, you’d sit down and do a lean assessment. But no one in the IT department asks: How can we integrate this application with another application so we don’t need another server? They just get another server. That’s not lean.”

Meanwhile, Prouty adds, when companies want to save money in the IT department, they often outsource legacy applications and processes without considering how that might impact their operations.

What’s the solution?

Step one, IT departments should ask what applications are core to the manufacturing and distribution operations, and not what is core to the IT department. “You really want to reevaluate your outsourcing strategy and ask whether you’re really outsourcing the right applications and services,” says Prouty.

Step two, IT needs to integrate with the manufacturing and supply chain operations groups, and not the other way around. “Right now, manufacturing is always subservient to IT,” says Prouty. “You need to drive IT to become part of a manufacturing organization and not a separate entity. “

Step three, in an effort to streamline day-to-day business processes, the IT infrastructure must support the development and re-use of applications as well as the availability of enterprise data sources, like servers, from the manufacturing line and the warehouse floor to sales, service and executive management. “I think that’s where service-oriented architecture (SOA) is going to come into play,” says Prouty. “SOA is all about reusing the applications and resources you have to create new processes.”

Three steps to a Lean IT department. If only trimming my waist line was as easy.

Let me know if you have any ideas on implementing a lean IT department in your company by posting a comment below, or by e-mailing me at Robert.trebilcock@verizon.net.

Posted by Bob Trebilcock on January 17, 2008 | Comments (2)