Introducing Students to Lean Thinking

With the nervous anxiety of our first exams and the excitement of the looming winter break, we assumed the leadership of the Industry Club in December 2017 and took over club operations in early 2018. My fellow club members and I decided that our main mission would be to increase awareness among current MBA students about the trends and functions in various industries.

MBA 2018 Industry Club members with Mr. Ramiandrasoa after his presentation

The 2018 MBA Industry Club members with Francis Ramiandrasoa after his presentation

March 2 marked a special day for us at the club as we welcomed our first guest speaker, Francis Ramiandrasoa, Lean Senior Expert & Coach at Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance. Mr. Ramiandrasoa, MBA ’03, has over 20 years’ experience as a Certified Six-Sigma Black Belt and Lean Sensei. He also has an impressive track record developing people and improving operational performance across continents and industries. We believed that this talk would pique interest among future leaders at the HEC Paris MBA to learn and adapt Lean Thinking, especially when organizations around the world are increasing emphasis on operational efficiencies.

The event began with a 40-minute presentation titled “A Short Introduction to Lean Thinking” by Mr. Ramiandrasoa. During this presentation, he eloquently defined the concept of Lean and its origin/history.  He shared information about a project he worked on in South Korea, where he helped improve efficiencies by adopting these principles, and finally concluded his talk by demonstrating the differences between Six-Sigma and Lean through a practical example.

After the presentation, students had an opportunity to meet Mr. Ramiandrasoa informally over drinks to gain additional insights about his career and experiences. Overall, the event was a huge success as evidenced by positive feedback we received from the attendees.

Text by Chaitanya Vangala

MBA student (class of 2019) Chaitanya VangalaChaitanya Vangala (MBA’19) graduated as a Mining Engineer from National University of Technology Karnataka, India and further pursued his Masters in Oil and Gas Engineering from University of Western Australia. With over seven years’ experience in engineering, business development and operations, he helped both Halliburton and National Oilwell Varco (Oil & Gas Service companies) grow market share in several key markets within Australasia. He decided to pursue his MBA at HEC Paris to increase his scope to the EMEA. He was elected as the Vice President of Finance for both the MBA’s General Management and Leadership Club and Industry Club.