The LEI senior executive series on … 

Lean Leadership As part of a continuing series on leading lean transformations, the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) will interview executives from a variety of companies to explore the challenges lean transformations present to senior managers.

Here are perspectives from Chris Vogel, senior vice president, Wells Fargo Home and Consumer Finance, on the unit’s lean journey, which began shortly after the Federal Reserve initiated a period of continually lowering interest rates to keep the economy afloat after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Wells Fargo was flooded with paperwork as real estate transaction volume more than doubled. Existing technology did not scale well and existing processes were stressed to capacity. Operations responded with new automation, but more importantly, with new, leaner processes for handling paperwork that revolutionized the way transactions were done. Based on the Toyota Production System, the re-designed processes applied principles such as standardized work, pull, value-stream mapping, and a rigorous cycle of plan-do-check-act to create an even flow of documents and eliminate large batches.

read it in:  www.lean.org/ChrisVogel_interview.pdf