The Origins of Lean
The term Lean was first used by Dan Jones and Jim Womack in their book ‘Lean Thinking’ published in the mid nineties. While studying Toyota, one of their researchers observed that when you strip out all the waste or fat then you are left with a Lean organisation and this name was adopted. In their book ‘The Machine that Changed the World’ (1990) Womack and Jones made it clear that Toyota had something special to offer and they resolved to bring knowledge of this method to the West. Lean Thinking is their term to describe what has been going on in Toyota for several decades driven primarily by Taiichi Ohno, the man considered to be the father of the Toyota Production System.
These are the five Lean Principles:
- Establish value in the eyes of the customer
- Map the total current process, surface the problems and blockages
- Make what adds value FLOW without interruption
- Pull what you want when you want it and expect it to be right
- Continual search for perfection
The Toyota approach shows great respect for people. Toyota takes the time to ensure that their staff knows how to do the job and, more importantly, that they have a responsibility to continuously improve the areas they work in.
This type of thinking and action took Toyota from nowhere to number 1 world wide in terms of quality and production volume.
Lean has since spread well beyond the auto manufacturing world thanks, in a large part to Jim Womack and Dan Jones and their Lean Enterprise Academies in the USA and Europe.