Introduction to Lean Thinking

Lean Thinking

Lean Thinking is systematic approach to the development of processes and people to continuously improve Safety, Quality, Delivery, Service, and Cost.

A team based methodology focused on creating true Customer Value by systematically eliminating or minimising Waste.

History

Many of these practices were first developed in the USA and utilised by Henry Ford in his early production lines. Toyota later went to America to learn how to make cars and soon found the practices had good foundations and could be applied very well in Japan. Through the tireless efforts of Taiichi Ohno they soon developed the philosophies that would define the Toyota Production System. That was over 70 years ago and Toyota has since developed those philosophies extensively and have been extremely successful because of it.

Those same philosophies are now practiced globally as people have learned that Lean Thinking is just that…. “Thinking how to improve processes and applying different ways of working no matter what the industry”.

Because of its association with Toyota, some parts of the world have taken time to understand that it’s not about making cars – it’s about improving the processes used in every aspect of our work.

Whilst in Toyota the philosophies and practices are known as “The Toyota Production System”, they have been known as “Lean Thinking” outside of Japan owing to the studies of John Krafcik in his article “Triumph of the Lean Production System,” and by American researchers James Womack and Daniel Jones.

Value and Waste

Value in Lean Thinking terms is often difficult to grasp as we often think that everything we do in a process adds Value. We often associate being busy with adding Value, but let’s look at it a different way.

When you buy something as a Customer what do you consider you are willing to pay for? Or maybe look at it from the perspective of what you would not be willing to pay for. Here are some examples: looking for tools or materials, waiting on information to do the job, reworking defective parts, waiting for your order to progress through to planning, waiting on design changes to be made.

When critically analysing a process it is common to discover that less than 10% of the process actually adds true Value from the Customers perspective. That means that up to 90% is undertaking Wasteful activities, so imagine how effective and efficient processes would be if we could either eliminate or minimise that 90%. Imagine ease with which you could complete that process and imagine the cost reduction that would come from that.