by Dave Rizzardo, MWCC Associate Director

At our Quarterly Conference on July 12, 2024, Lorelei Vargo, President of Vargo Innovations, LLC, Doug Galeone, VP of Sales at Chutes International, and Suzanne Carney, Chutes Account Manager (and one of their Lean leaders), teamed up to make a compelling case for applying Lean to the Sales function of an organization. This was not a morning of theoretical concepts. It was a factual and implementation-based review.

First, as Lorelei pointed out, Sales consists of processes, and there is waste of all forms within Sales processes, as there is in any other type of process. These wastes are things which add time and cost, but no value to the customer. Lorelei went waste by waste and pointed out specific non-value adding activities associated with each waste category often found in Sales processing; wastes which she and her clients have attacked to eradicate or at least reduce. What’s the impact? Well, increased productivity, shorter lead-times, and increased sales and customer satisfaction are just a few improved performance measures.

Speaking of lead-time, during Doug and Suzanne’s presentation, they reviewed how Chutes reduced the Quoting lead-time by 57%! They did this by getting the team together, mapping out the process, identifying the wastes, and developing countermeasures to redesign the process…your typical Lean analysis, planning, implementation approach. Think about the impact of reducing the Quoting lead-time by over 50%. Sure, the waste removal and reduction will increase productivity, but getting the quote to the potential customer in half the time, and likely before the competitors have even given a filename to their quote document. This has increased sales for Chutes written all over it!

One of the key words that Lorelei and Doug/Suzanne mentioned a few times throughout the morning was collaboration. Not just improved collaboration amongst the Sales Team, but also collaboration with other company functions such as Manufacturing. Our businesses are systems, so collaboration and coordination among the components of the system is critical, and Chutes has intentionally made huge strides in strengthening the broader Value Stream team. This won’t happen by itself. It takes purposeful effort. Chutes did it! Something all companies should heed.

One other improvement, amongst many, that I would like to highlight from the Chutes story is one which we do on the factory floor all the time but is unfortunately, not done often enough in the office environment. And that is experimenting with the physical layout of the office to facilitate information flow. Even when informal discussions between teammates take place due to improved proximity, value is often gained. Again, layout experimentation in the office, not done as often as it should to create a more collaborative environment. Great job Chutes!

There were many more examples that Lorelei, Doug, and Suzanne reviewed, but I will just end with the comment that the Sales organization, can and must, be interconnected with the rest of the organization, and they can and must, be waste busters like every other component of the system, and Lorelei, Doug, and Suzanne clearly showed how this is not a theoretical aspiration. They have done it and continue to do it! And that is what Lean is all about.