Cambridge Business Association
Lean for Banks
Book

Lean for Banks

Improving Quality, Productivity, and Morale in Financial Offices

Bohdan W. Oppenheim and Marek Felbur
Productivity Press, 2014
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Recommendation

Manufacturing companies embrace “lean,” a system for expanding productivity and quality that has its own concepts, vocabulary and tools. This concise but comprehensive introductory textbook by experts Bohdan W. Oppenheim and Marek Felbur covers lean for banking. In a reader-friendly manner, the authors explain how banks can use lean to eliminate core dysfunctions and deliver enhanced customer service. Their index, glossaries and references create a self-contained learning resource. getAbstract recommends this clear, instructive overview to banking professionals in management, human resources, customer service and operations.

Summary

The Basics of Lean

“Lean” is shorthand for any aspect of the lean paradigm: culture, systems, operations, processes, thinking and philosophy. Lean, meaning “without fat,” incorporates elements of industrial quality improvement programs such as “concurrent engineering” and “Total Quality Management.”

Lean’s managerial goal is to increase client value, and its guiding mantra is “customer first.” Lean classifies customers as either “external” – those who purchase a company’s products or services – and “internal” – the corporate team members and co-workers who create those products and services. Lean encourages teamwork in a culture of respect and fair treatment. In fact, “the masters of lean view teamwork as the most important aspect of lean operations.”

Ideally, managers promote trust and commitment, so that employees can develop the confidence to solve problems proactively. Lean focuses on using teamwork to implement productivity improvements. It identifies and eliminates waste while increasing quality. Participating companies report greater efficiency, reduced costs and higher consumer satisfaction. Lean does not use severe cost cutting or massive layoffs that...

About the Authors

Bohdan W. Oppenheim co-leads the INCOSE Lean Systems Engineering Working Group. He consults for the aerospace industry. Marek Felbur is a corporate director at the BRE Bank S.A. and has three decades of banking management experience.

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