lean at wipro
9-607-032
OCTOBER 16, 2006
DAVID M. UPTON
BRADLEY R. STAATS
Lean at Wipro Technologies
“We want to bring the next generation of lean thinking into our processes and weave it into our system so it will lead to a sustainable competitive advantage.”
— Azim Premji, Wipro Chairman
Sambuddha Deb (“Deb”), Wipro Technologies Chief Quality Officer and Head of Operational
Excellence, and Alexis Samuel, General Manager Process, Tools and Productivity, each thanked the other attendees at the lean project review session and walked out the door together. The bright
January sunshine and garden-like setting of the Wipro Technologies campus in Bangalore, India was a good match for their current moods. As they made their way to their cars across the campus, they discussed the status of the company’s lean initiative. Less than eighteen months earlier, as a response to organizational and competitive challenges, they had decided to try to port the concepts of the
Toyota Production System (TPS) or Lean from manufacturing to software services. As of January
2006, the company had over 235 lean projects completed or in process.
The promise and the possibility of Lean were topics of conversation throughout Wipro, from the boardroom to the company canteens scattered throughout India. Despite the early, positive results, the rollout of the lean initiative was far from complete. Wipro had over 1,100 concurrent projects so less than 15% were using Lean. The process thus far, had been one of substantial experimentation with limited central involvement. They wondered if now was the time to formalize a lean approach to running projects at Wipro. While they were using many tools from Lean, were there others that they should be applying? Finally, they continued to speculate as to whether what they were doing was really Lean. Was it possible to have lean software services or should they be assembling best practices into their own unique system, a ‘Wipro Way’?
Company
OCTOBER 16, 2006
DAVID M. UPTON
BRADLEY R. STAATS
Lean at Wipro Technologies
“We want to bring the next generation of lean thinking into our processes and weave it into our system so it will lead to a sustainable competitive advantage.”
— Azim Premji, Wipro Chairman
Sambuddha Deb (“Deb”), Wipro Technologies Chief Quality Officer and Head of Operational
Excellence, and Alexis Samuel, General Manager Process, Tools and Productivity, each thanked the other attendees at the lean project review session and walked out the door together. The bright
January sunshine and garden-like setting of the Wipro Technologies campus in Bangalore, India was a good match for their current moods. As they made their way to their cars across the campus, they discussed the status of the company’s lean initiative. Less than eighteen months earlier, as a response to organizational and competitive challenges, they had decided to try to port the concepts of the
Toyota Production System (TPS) or Lean from manufacturing to software services. As of January
2006, the company had over 235 lean projects completed or in process.
The promise and the possibility of Lean were topics of conversation throughout Wipro, from the boardroom to the company canteens scattered throughout India. Despite the early, positive results, the rollout of the lean initiative was far from complete. Wipro had over 1,100 concurrent projects so less than 15% were using Lean. The process thus far, had been one of substantial experimentation with limited central involvement. They wondered if now was the time to formalize a lean approach to running projects at Wipro. While they were using many tools from Lean, were there others that they should be applying? Finally, they continued to speculate as to whether what they were doing was really Lean. Was it possible to have lean software services or should they be assembling best practices into their own unique system, a ‘Wipro Way’?
Company