Mar 18 2014
A Definition of Lean | Mike Rother
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
Maybe it’s time for a better definition of “Lean.” Here’s one for you to consider and build on.
The proposal is “Lean is the permanent struggle to flow value to one customer.”
Permanent struggle is fine, but I prefer pursuit. It means the same thing but it is shorter and “pursuit of happiness” sounds better than “permanent struggle for happiness.”
On the other hand, I have a problem with “flow value,” which I see as the sort of vague abstraction that would prompt Mike Harrison to ask whether it come in bottles. It is exactly what Dan Heath is warning against in the video included in the slideshare.
I also have a problem with the exclusive focus on customers, which I see as Business 101 rather than Lean. Lean includes many features like heijunka, that are intended to make life easier for suppliers and are transparent to customers. Going Lean means looking after all the stakeholders of the business, not just its customers.
This is why I define it instead as the pursuit of concurrent improvement in all dimensions of manufacturing performance through projects that affect both the production shop floor and support activities.
Yes, I know, it is specific to manufacturing, but that is not my problem.
See on www.slideshare.net
March 18, 2014 @ 1:19 pm
Many thanks Michel on bringing out the topic. Yes, Lean is not only for the manufacturing world alone.
If customers are only defined as the end customer (alone) leaving out all the “internal” customer along the value chain this would leave the added value of any lean initiative very shallow.
March 18, 2014 @ 8:30 pm
Much of the discussion of customers in the Lean literature is centered on their willingness to pay, So-called “internal customers” don’t pay, and there is therefore no way to establish what they are willing to pay for.
Therefore, the only logical way to understand “customer” in this context is literally, not metaphorically. It is a person or an organization that pays you for a product or service and is free to buy it elsewhere.
March 19, 2014 @ 8:46 am
A glib but fun definition of Lean is “Only What is Needed Now”. It doesn’t include “respect for people” and other important aspects of Lean but that is hard to do in five lean words. I don’t where it came from – probably not Mr Ohno!
Matthew Peacock
March 19, 2014 @ 4:20 pm
The definition of Lean management that I have used for many years in my teaching and writing is:
“A Non-Zero-Sum Principle-Based Management System Focused on Creating Value for End-Use Customers and Eliminating WUU (waste, unevenness, and unreasonableness) Using the Scientific Method.”