Process Standardization and Continuous Improvement in Compliance Documentation: A Case Study at Haier Europe

This thesis investigates the application of Lean Office principles and continuous improvement methodologies to the compliance documentation and approval processes of the Standards & Approvals function at Haier Europe, a leading multinational home appliance manufacturer operating across the European Economic Area under the brands Haier, Candy, and Hoover. The research is motivated by direct internship observations revealing systemic inefficiencies across three core process streams: CE technical file preparation, laboratory test report repository management, and test report template standardization. These inefficiencies — including recurrent missing documents, inconsistent repository organization that hinders document retrieval, and error-driven rework cycles caused by non-standardized templates — manifest within a multi-stakeholder approval workflow managed through SharePoint without formalized governance structures. Adopting a single embedded case study design (Yin, 2018), the research combines direct participant observation, document analysis, and semi-structured stakeholder interviews to construct As-Is Value Stream Maps and a Lean administrative waste inventory. Six categories of waste are identified, three of which are rated high-severity, collectively undermining process efficiency, traceability, and scalability. Based on these findings, a To-Be process model is proposed incorporating standardized workflows, a structured repository governance framework, and a PDCA-based continuous improvement cycle. The impact of the proposed model is evaluated across four dimensions: technical and economic, at both company and supply chain level, in both the short and long term. The thesis contributes an empirical case study in a domain — regulatory compliance documentation management in EU manufacturing — that remains underexplored in the Lean Office literature, alongside a replicable improvement framework applicable to compliance-driven manufacturing contexts.