Zero - Downtime.

If you increase efficiencies and in so doing create more product than you can sell, then you’ve created wasted. The term “lean” was coined in the mid-eighties to describe a set of manufacturing techniques discovered in the Japanese automotive industry, mainly at Toyota, by opposition to mass production. The customer defines what is of value in terms of what they would pay for the product or service. Whether it’s idle workers or unused materials that cannot be recycled or repurposed, the results are the same: a drag on productivity. It was great.......For me lean simply means to be  effective and efficient in what we do.Effective in positive change and efficient in implementing it. E, the experiences (physical & emotional) your customers will enjoy when using them & in all their direct & indirect contacts with your organisation.

Yet it seems I am the only one to do this comprehensively and in detail. Thinking Peoples System.So are those definitions aligned with the maturity of the lean thinker or Organisation? The consensus is that what was there to learn at Toyota was discovered, captured, and written down a while back and that it’s now a question of leadership will and disciplined execution. Is the definition of lean effected/carved out of your mindset and the problems you have come up against or is that 'find in lean what you seek' point that Micheal made.I have found 2 definitions useful. Lean manufacturing principles can help your business processes gain efficiencies and, as a result, become more effective and competitive in any marketplace. You should explain them to your managers and colleagues.When you apply this thinking not only to your external & internal customer contact areas, but also down your supply chain, you will start to understand where & how Toyota’s amazing performance & competitive advantage is created. My impression in Japan was that only Toyota suppliers truly follow TPS - so the distinguishing factor might not be national cutlure, although, for sure, many things are interpreted differently in Asia and in the West - or between Continental Europe and Anglo-Saxons for that matter ;^)I think there cannot be one distinguishing factor, any excellence we see in life is a culmination of many factors coming together to create a "ripe" situation, for excellence to take place. Once we identified this missing element, we created a skill set to give managers the 3 A’s awareness, attitudes & abilities to do this. Personal interest is a factor in any successful endeavor -- medicine, golf, chess, sailing, teaching, etc. For example, they fault a focus on tools and methodologies rather than on the philosophy and culture of lean. TIMWOOD stands for the Seven Wastes of Lean: transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing, and defects. Unlike anyone else, my writing has long been a balance between a) how to achieve a successful lean transformation (research on CEOs who embrace Lean) and b) analyzing why Lean transformation processes fail (research on CEOs who don't embrace Lean). Through lean management, what adds value becomes clear by removing or reducing everything that doesn’t add value.The idea of lean manufacturing was first championed by the But lean as an idea that encompasses reduction of waste goes back to Benjamin Franklin, who wrote about it in his Poor Richard’s Almanack. This is essential to business success. Learn what each letter stands for and how to counteract each waste.

First class, I enjoyed it to say the least. Let me try and share my personal definition. Zero - defects. ----- 1) JIT/JIDOKA. What does it stand for? Indeed, several lean practitioners are now ready to look beyond Toyota for new inspiration.Proponents of the third approach remain puzzled by Toyota’s amazing competitive success and not so certain that all is understood. In order to keep one’s customers, one has to constantly improve the quality of the current products as well as broaden the product range by proposing innovative solutions. How to Practice Lean Manufacturing. One reason why a) has proven to have very limited impact among CEOs is because the causes of b) have been largely speculative (surface-level). A tool used to visually map the flow of production.

Proponents of this process state it takes a system-wide perspective as opposed to one solely on waste removal.Some principles that are shared by both methods of lean include:But Toyota maintains that lean’s main thrust is not the tools, but the reduction of three types of waste: non-value-adding work, in Japanese called muda; overburden, muri; and unevenness, mura.It is through these means that lean helps productivity. The question is, why not others? Not surprising, succeeding at this ambitious plan of better managing individual talents and energies requires a completely different approach to both leadership and management, notably transforming the traditional chain of command-and-control into a chain of help.The first two meanings of “lean” are by now rather well understood and codified in terms of:And by and large, the feeling is that the reference to Toyota is no longer quite as relevant as when we were all learning this stuff. Lean is currently being assimilated to traditional management by adding the box "continuous improvement" to target setting, monitoring and dishing out consequences. Are they meeting your planned expectations? In 2003, Mary and Tom Poppendieck published their book “Lean software development: an Agile Toolkit”.