Written by Lean management was successfully implemented by the humanitarian organization Medair Somalia despite the highly challenging context of a conflict-ridden nation, Somalia.
Abdinoor Hassan and Andrew Parris conducted training and kaizen event facilitation to lead the teams in four impact areas.
A one-day Lean training was conducted in the capital Mogadishu, with 22 Medair staff and leaders, and five partner participants. The next day they conducted a Kaizen workshop, during which they mapped and streamlined three key processes: volunteer training, monthly financial reporting, and the beneficiary feedback response mechanism.
Here is a summary of the significant improvements achieved across Medair’s operations:
- Supply Chain: Drastically reducing supply chain lead-times by 50% to get life-saving supplies from port to patient.
- Fleet Management: Improved fleet management safety, accountability and efficiency by replacing high-risk vehicles, implementation of data-driven tools and the introduction of strict standard operating procedures.
- Payments: Slashed the time for financial review and payment from one month to just two weeks and reduced payroll processing from one month to a mere four days.
- Crisis Response: Revised guidelines to cut approval time from seven days to three, standardized project documentation yielding 90% reduction in approval times (2 months to 1 week), and slashed fund disbursement wait time from 3 weeks to 4 days.
Key success factors include leadership support, creating a shared cultural understanding of Lean, and empowering staff through training, proving that Lean principles are effective even in highly volatile environments.
Learn more at https://www.planet-lean.com/articles/a-lean-journey-in-the-worlds-most-challenging-context