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Led by finance: roshan liyanage ACMA CGMA, divisional manager, treasury, at Sri Lankan fashion company MAS active, describes how the finance function transformed in line with the group's adoption of the lean enterprise principle.

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THE BACKGROUND MAS Active is a division of MAS Holdings, a clothing manufacturer specialising in undergarments and swimwear. Its finance function operated as a shared-services centre, structured into financial accounting, management accounting and treasury teams. After the division's establishment through the integration of four production facilities in 2005, it started to expand quickly, adding further facilities across Sri Lanka. But various pressures started to take their toll on the finance team, which was struggling with a lack of standardisation in particular. The need to repeat work - often manually - was forcing its members to work long hours, which increased overtime and other related costs, ultimately resulting in a high staff turnover rate. By 2008 the team decided that it needed to become a world-class finance function - a decision also driven by the deepening global recession and the group's long-term expansion plans.

THE PLAN The group was in the process of implementing a lean manufacturing philosophy based on the renowned Toyota Production System. This had three phases: lean manufacturing (2006-08), lean enterprise (2008-10) and extended lean leadership (2010-12). We used the lean enterprise concept to transform the finance function.

THE PROCESS We formed a steering committee to develop the change plan and appointed people to lead its six strands: "Strategy/policy deployment", featuring monthly KPI monitoring; "Operational stability", using lean tools such as systematic waste identification and elimination; "Culture of empowerment" to enhance team spirit and engender mutual trust and respect; "Continuous improvement", adopting the philosophy of kaizen...

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