SENS: Lean in Achmea

Wieger Wagenaar Finance Transformation – 9 december 2009

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Customer focus and operational excellence are building blocks for becoming Europe’s most trusted insurer

“SENS creates the basis for Operational Excellence”

“SENS offers part of the culture program how to deliver on empathy and interconnection”

“The essence of SENS is improving customer focus and result focusby cooperation”

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Achmea is embarking on a transformation journey through an ambitious Company-wide Lean (“SENS”) program

Source: Team analysis

Lean SENS

• Remove waste, variability, inflexibility

• Continuous inprovement through kaizen cycles

• Holistic aproach with equal emphasis on process optimization, operational management and mindsets & behaviour

• Capability building on all company levels

• Mini-transformations of 16 weeks

• Focus on value creation from customer point of view

Key Achmea learnings:

• Lean in financial services poses new challenges to the Lean filosophy and method

• Need to tailor to specific company and business unit characteristics

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For this transformation, the Board has made budget available without directly imposing targets

• As Executive Board, we have made available a substantial budget to set up the SENS organization and to pay for support throughout the mini-transformations

• Business Units make use of the centrally financed SENS organization, without direct reflection on targets

• Only if management commitment is given to certain improvements, these commitments will be reflected in the targets of the relevant business unit

• Achmea makes a significant upfront investment in a program that is expected to generate a true transformation

• Business units can “test the water” before committing to more ambitious targets

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As with Lean, SENS means eliminating all waste from customer perspective..

SENS (‘Lean’) is a set of systems, tools and behaviours. Lean is rooted in the production-industry

De core of SENS is eliminating everything that consists waste from the customer point-of-view and thus improving quality, productivity and cost

The key elements of SENS are• Process optimalization• Operational management• Mindsets and behaviour

A

B

C

Sources of waste

Overproduction

Waiting

Transportation

OverprocessingInventory

Correction

Motion

(Over-)qualification

Every movementthat does notadd value (e.g. walking to printer)

Reparations in case of low quality orerrors/ rework

Everything exceedingthe minimum needed to perform the operations

Producing too much or toofast

Waiting oninformation, paper work or decisions

Unnecessarysteps in process

Every case in which the time and talent of the employees are notoptimally used

Every non-criticaltransportion is waste

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..but SENS goes further than Lean in focusing on 3 key dimensions at the same time

If you neglect one of the three dimensions, the envisioned transformation will fail

Employee value

Customervalue

Financial Value

Financial Value

Mindsets & Behaviour

OperationalManagement

ProcessOptimization

“How people think, feel and act, both individually and collectively”

“Formal structures and the way in which the operations are directed”

“How are people and other resources combined and optimized in streamlined processes”

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Prediagnosis

Operational Management

Process optimization

Mindsets & Behaviour

~ 6-12 weeks ~ 6 weeks

Diagnosis

~2 weeks

Preparation

~ 6 - 8 weeks

Continuous improvement

• Best Practice visits• Kickoff/ Customer

Arena• Masterclass SENS

DO/MT• SENS basic training

• Training SENS diagnostic tools

• Working sessions with line team

• Training for TLs• Kick-off SENS on

unit

• Training for TLs and seniors

• Capture quick wins • Lead SENS workshop

• Anchoring SENS method

• Coaching/ intervision • Training new

employees • SENS Fora

SENS mini-transformations build up during 5 distinct phases

Continu

Implementation

Gate Steerco commitment

Teamleadercommitment

Kick-off unit

TeamleaderRecommitment

I n l e v e n

V e r b i n d e n

W a a r m a k e n