In what’s believed to be a first for the UK hospitality sector, Brighton based Ski Beat, which organises chalet holidays to the French Alps, has demonstrated how it applies the principles of Lean, the lynchpin of Japanese manufacturing, to the company’s ski tour operation.
“Lean centres around minimising waste of time and resources, to streamline the business to function as productively as possible and enhance customer satisfaction. We have applied these principles for the past eight years, and one of the most tangible results has been seeing our return business soar, with 96% of our clients saying they would travel with us again,” said Ski Beat’s Laura Hazell.
Ski Beat have been hosting the 29th Lean in Europe best practice visit, organised by the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation.
The event was attended by representatives from eight EU organisations and held at Ski Beat’s Chalet Alisier in La Plagne, following the departure of the last ski season’s final guests.
Hands-on workshops included observing and process mapping of preparation of Ski Beat’s breakfast service to optimise resources and reduce preparation time, a forum to discuss how Ski Beat applies Lean to enhance customer satisfaction, and an interactive analysis of the company’s chalet close down process.
Applying principles and processes more usually associated with global giants such as Toyota, Nike and Intel, Ski Beat and parent company Topflight, demonstrated how they apply Lean to the hospitality sector.
Key principles followed by the groups travel businesses are `Kaizen’ (continuous improvement), `Andon’ (empowerment to address and enhance customer satisfaction) and `Muda’, (highlighting non-value-adding steps, with the aim of saving time, ingredients, money and other resources.)
Laura Hazell continues “During an intense, two-day event, we gave delegates a unique `behind the scenes’ look at how we operate, as well as an opportunity to experience our ski chalet offer, to demonstrate how approaches developed by the manufacturing industry can be adapted to the travel industry. The interaction of ideas was very positive, and as well as sharing our work practices with other organisations, they in turn gave us valuable feedback and some valuable and subjective insight.”
The event is the 29th to have taken place since the Lean in Europe initiative was launched in 2013, with 32 companies and 641 individuals having taken part so far. The aim is for participants and hosts to see, understand and share good practice, to engage, challenge and provide feedback to the host company.