What did we ever do without BrandMaker? BrandMaker is the marketing resource management tool that our in-house agency uses to automate project workflow. Looking back at the jobs we used to outline on scraps of paper and the index card boxes full of projects at every stage of completion, it’s hard to believe anything ever got done. Two years ago, we transitioned to BrandMaker. And while this isn’t an endorsement of one workflow solution over another, migrating to an automated system has resulted in a host of terrific efficiencies.

This past year we took things one step further by training our employees on the Lean Six Sigma way of working. For those who may be less familiar with Lean Six Sigma, it combines Lean manufacturing and enterprise management practices, which reduce the time it takes to deliver products and services, with Six Sigma techniques which increase the quality of the products and services being delivered. The net effect is the elimination of seven categories of waste (also known as muda): overproduction, waiting, transporting, extra processing, excess motion, unnecessary inventory, and defects.

Our employees are embracing this new way of working. We’ve even formed a task force that is applying our Lean training to further optimize our processes for frequently requested materials. This has been a great experience for our team, with people actively applying what they have learned to enhance project workflow. It’s even brought our work teams closer together.

What has your in-house agency done to boost its process and workflow efficiency? Have any of you applied Lean training or adopted the Lean Six Sigma model? Tell us about it by weighing in below or better yet, by joining our community and being part of the on-going conversation thatIHAF members have about workflow, creativity, in-house agency management, and more.