TABLE OF CONTENTS Now the fun begins. You have made a list of possible projects. You have evaluated each potential project for the six areas: high probability of success, low cost, short payback of investment, tools, materials, and whatever other resources are available, good ROI, and low risk.
In this refinement stage, if a formal project is to be proposed, we have to write up the project proposal and prepare a verbal presentation to sell the project to management (if that is necessary). In the first few projects management permission is generally not necessary. Any proposal write-ups would be for practice. If you have a champion, let them be the interrogator to help you practice for the real management presentations given at later stages for larger Lean projects. By the same token write up the successes (and failures) for practice and for your Lean Maintenance archives.
Not until after that will we get approval of the proposal. Then we need to plan the project (similar to the way that any maintenance job would be planned). We can then execute the project and collect the data. The final step is to study the results and prepare a Project Report with the facts, the figures, and the story.
A good Lean project will have a before and an after picture (verbal, numerical, or even a picture). It wouldn't be very convincing if a weight-loss commercial showed only an 'after' picture and someone saying they were really fat before using the...
