ZOwonen: “Thanks to Symbol, we have twelve Lean ambassadors in house”

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Opting for Lean? Work bottom up, not top down

Together with controller Chantal Reulen, Roy van Westering (Manager HR) began discussions with three different agencies, including Symbol. “What we quickly did after that was involve our process leaders: the people who ultimately had to ‘undergo’ it, who had to work with it. That’s also a tip for other organizations looking at Lean Green Belt training: work bottom up, not top down. If you don’t, you lose half the profit potential. In the end, not only Chantal and I, but also our trainees sat down with Symbol. And they, too, had an important voice.”

1 + 1 = 3

“1 + 1 = 3 with this approach,” Van Westering continued. “Course participants had a good feeling about the training and the trainer – Daphne La Haye – from the first moment. As a result, they were motivated to get started and achieved great results. During the training, the no nonsense, hands-on and pragmatic approach was particularly appealing. The students were really put to work and received perfect guidance. This way, they slowly but surely became self-reliant in the world of Lean.”

A high energy level

Of course, the trainees were given plenty of theory during the training – after all, this is necessary for the Green Belt exam. But in addition, they have been working primarily with issues from their own practice. “That made the training immediately applicable,” says Reulen, himself one of the trainees. “Moreover, knowledge sticks better if there is nice variety during the training. Because of the good alternation between theory, videos and practice, the energy level remained very high during all the training days. Moreover, Daphne was very well prepared every time. And besides the fact that she is very knowledgeable, she is also a good listener and mirror. That was very pleasant for our group.”

Impact on your organization, results for your customers

Reulen tackled the “nuisance” process during the training. “When a client, i.e. a tenant, complains to us about nuisance in the property or from the neighbors, one of our housing counselors goes to work on that complaint. The problem: each counselor had his or her own process. During the training we looked at the current process, identified bottlenecks and made new arrangements. The result? A uniform and unambiguous process, so that every tenant receives the same treatment. Looking at a process in this way in detail has a great impact on your organization, but also delivers a lot for your customers. And that, of course, is what it’s really all about.”

Lean, a learning journey

The Lean Green Belt training – from which all twelve students have now passed the exam – has created a lot of awareness within ZOwonen. Reulen: “What is everyone’s role in a process? If I change something, what does this mean for those after me in the process? And if I experience a problem, where or with whom do I find the cause? We now know much better who does what. Slowly but surely, process thinking is becoming embedded in our company. I deliberately say ‘is becoming’ and not ‘is’, because Lean also requires a cultural change and you can’t achieve that overnight. So it remains a learning process.”

Twelve continuous improvement ambassadors

A learning trajectory that is fully committed organization-wide, though. Because what Symbol started is now being taken up by ZOwonen’s own Green Belters. In fact, lean process thinking is an important part of implementing a new ERP system. “One of our major focal points for the next two years is the implementation of this new system,” Van Westering says. “In doing so, the biggest battle we have to take is changing the way we work. Since the Lean Green Belt training, we have fortunately had twelve ambassadors for this. These ambassadors have also been given a separate status within the ERP project: they are the point of contact for the project groups that have been created for the ERP system. So the Green Belters now actually have the role that Daphne had during the training. Great to see that we now have so much solidity in house in terms of continuous improvement.” Reulen adds, “And that ultimately bears fruit for our customers. In fact, there are now 12 people thinking with every process: what does the customer think is important in this process, and does this process step add value for the customer? That’s a tremendous win.”