Lean Accounting: Connecting Continuous Improvement to the Bottom Line

Connecting Continuous Improvement to the Bottom Line with Lean Accounting

Lean is a multi-faceted business strategy, with a primary focus on employees and learning. Through continuous improvement activities, people learn how to eliminate waste, serve customers better and improve productivity. However, calculating the actual financial impact of continuous improvement activities is sometimes difficult because traditional financial analytical practices are not “lean-focused.” Connecting continuous improvement to the bottom line is often difficult. 

To solve this problem, a lean company must develop an effective and efficient management accounting function that complements its financial accounting system.  The system’s knowledge base must provide value to its users – managers who must measure & analyze lean operations and make quality decisions that align with their lean strategy. Effective decision making is predicated on understanding the true cause-effect relationships between continuous improvement and financial improvement. Lean management accounting focuses on making decisions about the future (this is critical because the focus of financial accounting is on past activity). 

In this interactive workshop, you will learn:

• The principles, practices and tools of a lean management accounting system.
• The economics of lean.
• The 6 possible ways continuous improvement can impact financial performance.
• How to build a value stream box score.
• How to connect continuous improvement to the bottom line through a series of Excel-based box score exercises which will require you to make some business decisions.
• How to plan a lean management accounting transformation.

This 2.5 hour workshop will consist of about one hour of training to be followed by 1.5 hours of exercises & discussions. You will be provided Excel workbooks with the exercise templates before the workshop. 

Who should attend:

• CEOs and Owners
• CFOs and Controllers
• COOs and lean leaders
• To get the most out of this workshop, teams of people from companies are encouraged to attend

Lean Accounting Expert, Author and Speaker

Nick is President and owner of BMA. For over 30 years, Nick has leveraged his lean accounting experience and philosophy in assisting BMA clients in developing, leading and coaching them in their lean accounting transformations. Nick has worked with companies around the world, from family-owned businesses to multi-national companies, in industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, software, engineering and service.

Nick has written extensively on lean accounting. He is the author of “The Lean CFO”(2023), which is an updated version of the 2013 publication “The Lean CFO.” The Lean CFO has been translated and published in Turkish and Italian. Nick co-authored “Practicing Lean Accounting” (2021), which has also been published in Italian. Nick has also spoken on lean accounting at lean conferences in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia.

You can reach Nick at [email protected] or go to his website - www.maskell.com

About Gemba Academy:

Gemba Academy aims to help individuals and businesses develop an organizational culture of continuous improvement. Founded in 2009, Gemba Academy now offers over 2,000 training videos on Lean, Six Sigma, and continuous improvement. To learn more about Gemba Academy’s online content, in-person training events, expert coaching, and certifications, please visit https://www.gembaacademy.com/.

Event Venue

Online