What is Lean?

Lean is a tool kit in the continuous improvement weapons bin. Lean by itself does NOT have adequate tool to cover all of the continuous improvment issues that may occur.
The lean toolkit is focused on velocity, whereas the six sigma toolkit includes  the DMAIC process (a methodology) along with variation reduction tools.
You need these two toolkits and more to be successful at continuous improvement.

Seems that lean is a process of cutting fat with a meat cleaver. And six sigma is a process that uses a scapel.Lean actually uses shock tactics to reduce costs and amplify pressure to produce with less. But sometimes lean, in its effort to eliminate waste, actually cuts the actual heart from an orginization, rendering it unable to function.

I have seen success with lean and I have seen it bring about misarable failures.Seems that the supporters of lean say “when you are successful you have implimented lean correctly and when you fail you did not impliment it properly.”Leansters cant lose with a philosophy like that. However it is the same argument that was used for TQM, Reengineering the Corporation, etc.Six sigma, on the other hand, is a much better defined process that according to statistics will improve conditions. The catch is, in order for six sigma to be effective the assumption that lean is in place has to exist.And since lean can not actually be measured by any standardized system the assumption that a process or organization is lean or not cannot be made.

Yeah, those Toyota guys sure are a bunch of lucky bastards.

Toyota  = Lean ??
I agree that Toyota is a sucessful firm. Does that mean that it is lean?
General Motors had an increase while toyota had a decrease in sales the last quarter.
Does that mean that General Motors is now lean and Toyota is getting fat?
Lean is just the latest buzz word…line blancing, theory of constraints, JIT, non-stock production, cycle time reduction are all traditional IE concepts that have been around for a long long time.
I really like the part of lean when the sensa walks thorugh the plant and demands a huge head count reduction along with a large reduction of machinery. He does this with just a walk through….Womack and Jones actually want you to believe that people who truly understand the meanng of lean have this power.
The only problem with this is that no one can actually agree on a definition of lean..this discussion forum is proof of that.
If you can’t define it it can’t be measured..if it can’t be measured it doesn’t exist……..Try doing six sigma without defining and measuring and see where you get…maybe all you need to do get some magical sensa to declare the solution….save a lot of work and statistical analysis.
As far as Toyota being lucky..we all know that the sun don’t shine on the same dog everyday..Today Toyota, WalMart, etc. Yesterday, IBM, K-Mart, General Motors, Tomorrow…no one knows.
As far as Toyota guys being bastards, I have no idea…mommas baby daddys maybe.
Mike
 

Stan,
You are a ama of few words. That said,
What could you posibly know about achievement?
Mike
 
 

Another statement without any argument to back it up.
Somehow that statement makes sense to the Lean guys..after alll they actually don’t have to justify thier muda reduction actions…it is an inherent ability to the lean guru …oops….sensa.
Mike

Mike,
Go look at your post. What arguement have you got to back it up? Just emotion and ignorance.
When you present an arguement, I’ll do the same.
For example, Your statements about Lean, TQM, .. apply to Six Sigma too. When SS fails (and it does more than it doesn’t) it is blamed on lack of leadership, lack of involvement, …..
 

Joe honey,
Welcome back, I’ve missed you. Now go away.

Right,
Failure is always atributed to not following the program.
When I was just a greenie for a consulting firm we used to guarantee results. The problem was that the firm had to follow our recommendations. Well when it didn’t work we could always say that the recommendations were not followed exactly, that is why it didn’t work.
That is what happens with Lean, I have been in the business as a practicing IE for forty years  and from my experience with new breakthroughs has convinced me that that the lastest and greatest is just more of the same on a new bandwagon.
six sigma is realy not new…just commonn sense coupled with statistics..I agree with demming that an understanding of quality requires an understanding of statistics. but other than that that six sigma as a concept has been around for quite a while it just wasn’t formalized as a method.
Lean is good philosopy..reduce muda and continue to improve. However the marketing of this phylosophy is what is distasteful to me.
It is intersting that there is no method to lean only an outcome. the method seemd to be “BANISH WASTE” where waste is everything that does not add value to a product or is not a process that the customer is not willing to pay for.
Now to me, anyone in business should already be aware of this concept.
If on the other hand you believe that lean is a collection of classical industrial engineering tools combined with kaizans. I would say that again, nothing new.
So what is the big deal with Lean???
Can you provide any evidence to back up your claim.
I will end with congratulating you with arguing a point with pure emotion. namely namecalling…usually the realm of stupid people..but I will hold judgement and give you the benifit of the doubt that you are just namecalling out of igorance.
Forgive my spelling and grammer,,I am slightly dyslexic, however it gets worse with age.
Mike

Mike,
I agree with your take on nothing new. I am an IE who did his senior project on a factory that flowed with almost no in process inventory – in 1975.
I am sorry your experience with Lean implementation is so bad. We use it to free up resources to focus on the tough improvement projects. Done right, the workplace is a better place.

Don’t confuse what some people call ‘lean’ as being the same as TPS.  The philosophy of TPS is not to ‘reduce waste and continue to improve’, it is more closely to ‘continuous improvement through problem solving’ — meaning that its’ success is based on an ability to identify & solve problems — which is defines the methodology that you say is missing from TPS.
While you also say that companies were successful before Toyota, no company has developed a better system for improvement — not even close.  Many companies are successful because they are only better than their competition, not necessarily because thay have a good business system.  I don’t work for Toyota, nor drive a Toyota, but if you really understand what they are doing (and that is a big “IF”, since it seems that you confuse lean and TPS), you would bet that they probably will be around for quite a while.

I have been involved in “Lean” for a few years.
Years ago I attended a Lean seminar at the Juran Institute. This was shortly after the first release of Lean Thinking. Since then I have taken numerious grtaduate coursed in lean and has assisted in researching lean and assistited in designing an undergraduate course the is Lean based.
I am not sure of what you mean when you use the acronym TPS. I was under the assumption that this was a discussion on the meaning of lean.
TPS may have a diferent definition than lean, but at this point I don’t think that we cn determine that as a fact because I have not heard a good definition of lean.
Although I have completed numerious hours of lean study and am a central lean advisor where I work. I myself cannot define, nor have I, in all of my research and study and experience seen, heard, or read a good definition of it.
Therefore I conclude that “IT” does not actually exist.
The Toyota system is not the lean system becuse the Toyota system will not work for anyone but Toyota. Any who patterns his business after Toyota will fail unless they make and distribute Toyotas.
Continuous improvement is just that. Is there a methodology to improving? Can it be incorporated across functions? Or is it just a persitance and a philosophy to remain humgry?
Mike

I have not read:
J. Krafcik (1988). Triumph of the Lean Production System. Sloan Management Review, MIT. 30 (1). Fall.
However I do know the following about him.
John Krafcik did not really coin the phrase “lean”.
While he was working with James P. Womack on the International Motor Vehicle Program at MIT whe he helped coin the phrase “lean manufacturing” which became a worldwilde catch phrase with the publication of the best seller “The Machine That Changed the World.”
He did however coin the phrase “fragile production system.”in his thesis titled “Comparative analysis of performance indicators at world auto assembly plants.”
He recognized that when companies were “fragile, or as I like to term it, lean”( for example low inventory levels) they could fall apart and break down very easily due to inventory outages etc. However, when he studied the Toyota System he realized that there was a clear need for strength within a fragil production system and Toyota demonstrated this strength.
He was the first American Engineer to be hired at the Toyota-GM joint venture in Fremont, California. e was let to MIT as a result of his experiences at Toyota and that is where he and Womack gave birth the whole lean phenomenon.
In addition to Toyota he also worked at the GM Oklahoma City Assembly Plant, The Ford Motor Co, Hyundai Motor America. However, I do not believe that he ever worked at Honda as you claim.
 
 

Sorry, but I can’t help a “know it all” who hasn’t even read half of the literature (published or unpublished … and I doubt that you have access to the unpublished litetature). Good luck anyway. But you’re not worth my time!

Sorta like when we first tried to impliment JIT…We learned the true meaning of the acronym….”Jammed In Trucks”
But anyway here is my academic definition of lean:
I arrive at this definition from my graduate studies and resuarch into the subject
Lean is:
 a philosophy to systtematically identify and eliminate waste.
a lean enterprise:
 1.) lines up value creating activities in best practices sequence.
2.) conducts activities only when customers request
   
 

Lean is:
 a philosophy to systtematically identify and eliminate waste.
Alean enterprise:
1.) lines up value creating activities in best practices sequence.
2.) conducts activities only when customers request
     a.) It is flexable to the demand and the variety of the customers    needs
     b.) It has quick turnaround for the customer
     c.) It produces high quality and reliable delivery at the lowest possible costs.
3.) It contributes learning and innovation to improving its products and its services
4.) It has a commitment to continuous improvement.
I base this definition on many hours of research and study of the subject.
So you can see that according to this definition an enterprise can actually be lean and at the same time fail.
The shortcoming of lean is that it does not address the changing market. If the market were to decide that it no longer wanted to buy Toyotas Toyota would still be lean, but it would also be out of business.
I believe that Toyota actually owes the bulk of its success to being at the right place at the right time. The time was the during the gas shortage and Toyota’s were economical on gas and were of higher quality than American expectations. Had the gas crisis not happeed when it did I really doubt that we would be having a discussion about lean, period.
And thats about all I have to say about it.
Mike
no matter how well you do something if it does not produce revenue it fails…

Well said

It’s easy to put down someone when you have no argument.
However you will not succeed in bringing me down to your level.
Try to find a little self esteem, it would do wonders for your personna.
Mike

Maybe you should offer him some Lean -https://www.isixsigma.com/forum/showmessage.asp?
messageID=126222

Very informative,Please  continue  your  great  contributions  ,don’t  allow  those …………….to  furstrate you,keep  it  up 
best  regards

Just read the  book : Getting the Right  Things  Dobe  by Pascal Dennis.
You  may  then  recognize that  “it’s  not  the  sun shining  on  the  same  dog everyday”….just  read  it

This  why  it is called Lean-SS

Britw
In reading your last post, I am somewhat confused at what you are trying to say: “Lean isn’t better than Six Sigma and visa versa”
First, Lean cannot bring a process under statistical control, and Six Sigma alone cannot dramatically improve process speed or reduce invested capital. So why are you comparing the two. As I read further down your post, I know you fully understand the difference in the two, but that one little sentence has no meaning.
The closest definition I have seen for Lean is that Lean is not just raw material procurement strategy, but rather a process, with three puposes.

To eliminate wasted time, effort, and material
To provide customers with make-to-order products
To reduce cost while improving quality
If you take these three statements and create a mission statement you have probably created a pretty good definition of Lean. How one acheives those 3, is a combination of many tools and approaches, which can all be labeled under Lean Methodology.
Chad Taylor

I have posted the defnition that was used in the course in an earlier post.
Each student was also incouraged to come up with their own definition of lean, because employers tend to want to know the what Lean means to a candidate.
The fact that we mutually arrived at an academic definition for lean does not mean that I agree with it.
To me lean and six sigma are all about trimming the fat from an organization. Lean philosophy and methods remove huge chunks of waste, or fat as i like to see it, in a relatively short period of time. Six Sigma on the other hand assumes that the bulk of the fat has been cut before it can work. I see six sigma as a scapel used for the same purpose.
Lean to me,  is actually a vision tthat requires continuous improvement to achieve.
let me give you an example of the last lean project I worked on.
Cererbus hired me to help strreamline (lean out) a bankrupt company that it had recently acquired. A completely new management team replaced the old team. We had one objective…turn the company into a profitable firm.
To make a long story short.  Out of four sites in the particular division I was in three were shut down, the one that was left had two of its three production departments eliminated. Salary head count was reduced by 95%. A 24/7 (168 hr/wk)  operation was turned into an 80 hr/wk operation, a reduction of 52%. Wage roll employee head count was reduced from 400 to 100, a 75% reduction. The profit margin of the company reached record levels and have been relatively increasing over time.
There is constant pressure to move the needle..from the board room to the shop floor.
It really sickens me to know that I am part of this massacre and will probaly be a future vivtim. Sorta like the guy who helped buid the gas chamber and was later executed in it.
The complete lack of humanity is appalling….I hate to draw parallels to Nazi Germany but Hitler also believed in eliminating anthing that did not contribute to the productivity and efficency of his third empire, like hanicaps, the mentally ill, etc. Sure seems like a lean concept to me.
I hope it can last two more years, because I don’t want to be a 60 year old job seeker in today’s market…Sorta gois against the whole idea of out with old and in with the new lean philosophy doesn’t it?
Enough of this blah blah blah
Mike.
Lean has left a bad taste in my mouth ever since the masacre. It worked for the time being but at a terrible cost to the human factor.

I try – thanks.

Sorry you had a bad experience.  Not all of them are that invasive and seems like they couched a plant reorganization in “lean speak.”  Sounds like downsizing to me – along with some strategic business building.  Not a nice way to go for the human factor, but not sure I would have classified your example as a lean implementation based on waste reduction and continuous improvement.

I tried to post the google results, but administrator wouldn’t allow it.  Be glad to send examples offline – send email.
So – you are saying that by reducing defects or minimizing variation, that a six sigma project cannot affect TAT?  When you pigeon hole, you really pigeon hole!  Do you think that by applying lean techniques such as kanban, buffers, etc., that the chance for defects might be reduced? 
Also – that last statement really proves that you have no idea of the power of either tool.

BritW & Stan
Lean Six Sigma by Michael L George with very documented case studies from Caterpillar, GE, Honeywell, International Truck, ITT Industries, NCR, Northrup Grumman, Lockhead Martin, Rockwell, Raytheon, and Many others. Specific page is 7. You will also find a link to the George Group Site at the Top Right hand corner of this site.
Many footnotes from Jack Welch, Taiich Ohno, Dr Deming, and Dr, Taguchi.
cstaylor74@hotmail.com
please send me what you have. Like I say I’m always wanting to learn more, I’m trying not to be argumentive, and truely want to “broaden” my thinking as you say.
Chad Taylor

Stan, it seems I never left. I come back after a long absence and still find you making dogmatic statements and providing little help to innocent posters.

Sounds like a very bad experience with what some people think lean is.  Unfortunately you have not only been a victim of this experience, the academic course that you have outlined is putting the next generation onto the same path . . .
A previous poster suggested Pascal Dennis, ‘Getting the Right Things Done’.  A quote from the book is from Pascal’s sensei . . . “Very strange, in North America you manage business the way the Soviets managed their economy”.
If you still have influence on the design of the college course, it would do well to spend more time on Pascal’s approach.

I assisted two professors in preparing the course.
One has a PhD in Industrial Technology
The other has a PhD in Industrial Engineering
Both are retained by an Industrail Consulting Operations that provide lean consulting and training.
I was just a grad student warking n a MS degree in Quality.
Seems that everyone has their own opinion about lean. I believe that is the case because there is really no accepted common definition of it.
I actually believe that lean is a concept that came about by studying the Toyota and other Japanese systems and noting the extreme differences between it and traditional American production systems.
One stock production verses mass prodution.
Quick changeover to decrease cost of changeover verses large lot sizes to justify the relatively high cost of changeover
The high degree of attention to quality verses an acceptable defect level and the widespread use of AQL’s
The use of statistics to understand and cntrol quality rather than inspection and MRB’s.
Unfortuatanly these types of changes are caused by desperation.  Toyota was in desperate straits after WWII and had to do somethng to survive, fortunatly they had a few very talented and gifted people like Toyoda and Shingo to lead the way.
However the Toyota system is NOT the same thing as lean even though the Toyota is considered to be lean.
Lean is only a concept that a firm can strive to achieve. The concept, I believe is doing the best that can be done or a quest for excellence.
Excellence, however is a matter of opinion. Our two party system is an example of this….less government on the one hand is considered better by some but more government is considered better by others.
The basic problem I have with lean is that it takes the goal of achieving high profits to the extreme so much so that other values are subordinated to it.
It seems to be a product of the ME generation when greed was considered to be a good thing and the idea that each individual should be able to have the best healthcare he could offord.
Mike (forgive the spelling and grammer)
 

Lean is supposed to be good and lean has always been associated with the Toyota and Japanese systems.
This was due to the times. In those times the Japanese, or so it seems, wee moving toward world domination in manufacturing and distribution.
However, ust as everything goes in cycles so it was for the Japanese phenomena.
But at least, the main enterprise that lean was based on,Toyota, still seemed to be destined to become the world leader in the Automobile market.
But alas nowdays it appears that General Motors is overtaking Toyota after being down by a significant margin at halftime.
The game isn’t over yet, but I will say this, if General Moters reclaims its place as the number one automotive manufacturer and distributor in the world, lean will stop being a common tem in our vocabulary. it will then be replaced by a new word or phrase that will have exactly the same meaning….which is….follow me to success.
It is all really akin to the author who writes a book titled “How to Make  a Million Dollars” and inside the book are instructions on how to write a book on How To Get Rich Quick….
The first author will probably make his million, so will some who follow his advice, but once people catch on the books die and new scam arises.
The tools mentions that are associated with lean are nothing more than age old industrial engineering tools that have been around for decades. 5S..new term for housekeeping
VSM…new acronym for where are we at ..where are we going…were do we wont to go…and what are we doing about.
Contimuous improvement…..still means staying competitive
So they is actually nothing new here other than the knowledge of the phrase….”When You Find Yourself in a Hole…Quit Digging!” which is what Toyota did to pull themselves out of financial ruin back in the post WWII days.
Mike

Wow.

Steve and Jimm
I would like to make a comment or more of an observation about vehichle reliability. Over the past 13 or so years I have driven strictly Dodge trucks, before that Ford trucks, My farm vehichle is a 96 model toyota truck. I have only had one vehicle ever in the shop for repair and it was a factory recall. The 5 Ford trucks I have owned all had over 175,000 mile when I traded off and other than normal wear items were great trucks. The Dodge is the same. As for my old farm truck Toyota it takes a beating everyday its used and some things break and needs repaired alot, it currently has 115,000 miles and I do consider it a good truck, I have had a couple fords for farm trucks as well and not really any difference in the amount of repairs that have to be made.
I say all this to make a point about driving habits that often dictate product reliability. Some people just break things, they drive eraditic so on and so forth. Any of todays big automakers produce an equally quality product. How you treat your investment is directly related to its longivity.
Lets face it. In todays market all that GM, Ford, Dodge, and Toyota do is assemble vehichles with components that are often times produced  in the same shop for all 4 manufactures. I know this because I used to be the operations manager for one such tier 1 shop in Chicago.
Chad Taylor

Good to hear from you again. Watch mike, his opinions are just too precious.stan,s been needing some of your encouragement too. He,s becoming too warm and fuzz.

Don’t blame you for having Toyota’s I won’t buy anything else.
I got 350,000 miles on my frst camry….had no maintenance other that changing ol and filter every 3,000 miles and changing antifreeze every year. That’ it !!! 350,000 miles I gave it to my nephew to drive around while he is away at school..Still running well !!
I now have another 2007 camry. My wife bought a Yaris is you can believe that…to her it looks like some kind of organic bug…she is into everything organic…..organic today, low carb yesterday….sorta like lean today, reengineering yesterday.
If what you are doing is succesful and you are caling it lean, then lean is a good thing for sure…just don’ get cought up in the terminology and think that the toolkit is the end all and be all of toolkits..
Everything passes with time and so will lean, be sure to keep that in mind. I still believe that keeping your mind on he prize is the number one contributor of success.
Anyway here’s to all the 101 definitions and methodologies that is lean.
Don’t forget….lean can equal fagile as one of the people who coined the term recognized…he sressed that strength has to be present as a part of lean.
Analogy: thin can be weak but thin with muscle mass is strengh.
I like your posts…your optimism is refreshing

stan, since when are you using the thesaurus and look up complicated words such as “respect”. that has never been part of your vocabulary. are you getting sick? do you need some help with mental health? what’s wrong with you? do we need to get worried?

Hey just a footnote on the quality and reliability issues. Does anyone remember that in 2002 or 2004 (don’t remember)Toyota recalled more vehicles than it made. Not to mention they still lead in all vehicles recalled…The one thing most don’t know.

My point is do not always believe what you read or hear about Toyota being number 1 in quality.. basically in agreement with an earlier post about the quality being pretty much even across the MFG’s.

Capt. Kaizen – no one in these posts has stated that Toyota is number one in quality. Maybe number one in corporate sales, or certain market shares. Also, recall that for the past few years – every auto maker has had record recalls; Ford, GM, DC, Honda, Toyota – nearly all have been affected. For example, the Ford Focus (current generation) has been recalled multiple times (three, maybe four) for the same defective fuel pumps! The Ford F-150 (1999-2003) models that eject spark plugs due to defective design cylinder heads. By the way, even if occurring during the 3 yr. / 36k warranty – Ford was denying responsibility! Now’s that action sure to retain customers!
The point is that with Toyota there are several a fundamental differences and methods of doing business; focus on long-term quality and not forsaking the customer when defect issues arise, respect for the employee; identifying and eliminating waste by harnessing ideas of the employees on the factory floor (improved communications / relations = no labor unions necessary), employing mistake-proofing to an average of eight (8) per workstation to eliminate defects at the source, and on and on. Many of the so-called quality ‘flavor-of-the-month’ practices at the domestic automakers; TPM, QFD, lean, waste reduction – are the everyday methods of doing business at the Toyota, Honda, Nissan factories. It’s ingrained into the business culture to make incremental improvements at each level, every day. This philosophy and self-auditing approach takes places everywhere; design, sales, order entry, purchasing, HR, production – every aspect of the company is scrutinized under a common magnification.
At most US companies we tend to make a six-sigma project out of it – package it using Power Point, whoop-it-up and high-five each other – like it’s something extraordinary. 
Like I said – there’s a fundamental difference in the way of conducting business……

It is well publicized that Toyota has been having problems training employees in their methods, particularly as it relates to having and finding senior employees that can teach the method. This problem has been exacerbated by the growth they have undertaken in Asia (China, SE Asia, etc.). They are aware that has caused quality problems, so there is some truth to the quality vs. quantity question. It has caused them to cut back on some of their growth plans (wouldn’t stop GM . . .)I have recommended this before, and it is a good story on how an ex-automotive plant manager had problems keeping up when he was hired by Toyota — Steven Spear, “Learning to Lead at Toyota” (available from HBR.com). The employee had a couple university degrees, and managed a major automotive plant for a competitor. He was trained by Toyota for three months before he was placed in the position that he was hired for.Of course, we should direct Toyota to this website and they will find out they just need to hire some more IE’s to fix their problems.The functional quality methods are also true. While it may seem that means ‘just good enough’, it really just relates the process of setting output standards for each process, and problem solving to countermeasure if the standard isn’t met. Sounds kind of sloppy, but it seems to get the job done in most cases (unless the skills of the employees are not up to par).

Thanks — didn’t really want to slam any IE’s with the post, especially as it relates to an engineering profession . . . but if we keep training our next generation of engineers in pseudo-TPS, then we won’t need any more IE’s any way . . .

Steven
I  have prepared an impressive PPT tackling some  major  aspects  of  Lean-SS,I’m  ready  to  exchange those  slides with  you if  you are(as  a real  expert) ready  to send  me  some of  your  excellent prepared PPT
(as well).
If you  agree ,just  send  me  your  email 
Best Regards   
 

Guess you haven’t been on this website before.  Stan and xxxxx (you fill in the name) will always be going back and forth, exchanging insults and acting childish.  I, on the other hand, am always mature, straightforward and a fountain of knowledge.

Thanks  for  the  response.
Just  wait  sometime  as  I  have trouble  in  connection.
Hope  to  receive  some  good  slides  from  an  expert  as  well
best  regards