The basic idea behind Lean, which was developed at the Toyota factories in Japan in the 1960s, is that you only do what your customers will pay for. Everything else you do in your organization is considered waste and must therefore be eliminated or minimized.
Lean thus involves identifying which activities create value, making these processes more efficient, e.g. by minimizing waste and not least being focused on constantly trimming activities and processes. One of the basic ideas in Lean is that it can always be improved.
For this to be possible, it requires major changes in an organization, and one must therefore be aware that Lean is neither a quick fix nor a diet. Lean can more accurately be described as a lifestyle. In fact, it typically takes 1-3 years to implement Lean and it requires quite a lot of commitment and a highly motivated management and the organization as a whole. For Lean to be successful, the company must be ready for the major change it requires from everyone involved.
Lean started in earnest with Womack and Jones' book "Lean Thinking" in 1996. After several years of studying Toyota's production, Womack and Jones described Toyota's methods and gave it the term "Lean".
Since then, Lean has become a buzzword throughout the world and in all industries. Lean means "trimmed" and in Denmark the method also first appeared under the name "Trimmed production".
Here we present four key elements that are important for understanding and using Lean. If you want to go more in-depth with a topic, you can click on to an in-depth article.
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Lean is based on 5 principles, all of which contribute to optimizing companies and value chains.
The five principles are:
Lean uses a number of tools that help maximize value and reduce waste. An extensive toolbox belongs to each of the five principles. Some of the tools are presented here.
Lean operates with eight different types of waste. Within each of these areas, companies can identify and minimize waste.
Read about the eight types of waste and find out how they manifest themselves in administration and production.
A very central tool that is good to start with.
As I said, Lean can be described as a cultural change and as such is a major upheaval for all companies that embark on the project. Here you will get an overview of some of the most typical ones.
There are many results to be gained by starting to "think Lean". Lean Thinking leads to significant results in terms of the working environment, economically and competitively.
And because the organization is introducing a new culture that is continuously improving, the results will show year after year.
Source: FlexKom.dk
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