LEAN APPROACH AT EUROFINS ADVINUS
Introduction to Lean Methodology:
Lean is an integrated set of principles, practices, tools, and techniques to systematically address gaps and eliminate the root causes of operational underperformance ensuring sustenance.
Lean is all about imbibing lean thinking and transforming the way the employees think and act so that everyone develops the skills to identify waste and eliminate them systematically. To achieve this, employees across Eurofins Advinus have been trained on basics of Lean methodology, and further scale up plan is being made to launch Lean Practitioner training to develop capabilities and empower employees to apply problem solving techniques and lead Lean transformations independently.
Lean focus @ Eurofins Advinus:
At Eurofins Advinus, Lean is considered as an ongoing quest for optimization through the elimination of all sources of loss.
• For our customers, this means faster turnaround times without compromising on quality.
• For our people, this means a safer, stress-free and productive working environment.
• For the planet, this means a sustainable operation to support ecological balance and conserve natural resources for current and future generations.
As it applies to a laboratory, Lean is all about streamlining, error-proofing and generally improving every aspect of the lab operations. We aim at eliminating all the steps that do not add value to our stakeholders while maintaining a high level of quality. This process involves evaluating and measuring everything that goes into a specific operation, understanding where the value comes from, focusing on these key activities and eliminating any unnecessary processes. Systematic problem-solving methodologies are in place to guarantee that permanent corrective actions are taken to prevent recurrence of the problems.
Deployment of Lean methodologies:
In the roll out of Lean methodologies we have directed our attention towards:
- A general tidy up and reorganizing of the labs through 5S and visualization to improve working environment.
- Initiation of IT solutions to make data processing activities less manual and time consuming.
- Measure, monitor and improve the Key Performance Indicators of lab and functions through Daily Work Management and Performance Management System, respectively.
Daily work management meeting:
5S:
Eurofins Advinus through a dedicated support from its Top Management is embedding Lean principles to accelerate a culture where everyone in the company and external supply chain is aligned and empowered to stop defects, improve processes, and eliminate waste.
Before 
After
HEALTH & SAFETY
Eurofins Advinus work continually to maintain a safe and accident-free environment for its employees, contractors, customers and society. We conduct our business in a way that integrates health and safety as a core value to drive continual improvement of our culture and performance in safety.
Vision-Zero Harm
To achieve ZERO harm in work environment, a strategic framework is created to eliminate all workplace accidents to safeguard human health. We give all employees, regardless of level, access to an open platform where they can highlight at-risk conditions and observations.
Employee engagement
To address the potential hazard and promote safe work practices, committees have been formed specifically to address the workplace safety, implementation, monitoring of company policies and procedures.
Understanding people are our important resource, employees at all levels collaborate to identify, eliminate potential risks and hazards in the workplace. The process has been established for training the employees to determine effective risk mitigation methods and communicate at all levels in the organization to reduce negative impact on employee health and safety. As a part of our risk reduction program, we continue to invest in emerging technologies to reduce the risk to an acceptable level in our priority risk areas in order to prevent exposures to significant risk in the workplace.
Contractor safety
Eurofins Advinus strives to uphold the safety of our contractors and partners. Our contractor’s safety is priority to us, and we follow formalized Work Permit System to manage the high-risk activities carried out by them in our work environment.
Legal review
We have a strong legal review process through our legal team to confirm the strength and governance of our safety performance. A compliance monitoring tool is designed to periodically review our local laws and regulations besides ensuring compliance to it.