What is the Origin of Lean Manufacturing?

• We see the roots of Lean in the writings of Ben Franklin. In his book, Poor Richard’s Almanac, he writes about the reduction of waste when he writes, “avoiding unnecessary costs could provide more profit than increasing sales”.
• Franklin’s thoughts are further developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in his 1911 book, Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor outlined and named the process of “Proto-Lean”, calling it Scientific Management. He wrote, “Whenever a workman proposes an improvement, it should be the policy of the management to make a careful analysis of the new method, and if necessary, conduct a series of experiments to determine accurately the relative merit of the new suggestion and of the old standard. And whenever the new method is found to be markedly superior to the old, it should be adopted as the standard for the whole establishment."
• Shigeo Shingo read Taylor’s book and dedicated his life to the furtherance of Scientific Management. He and Kiichiro Toyoda refined Taylor’s philosophies in the textile and automotive industries. As time went on, the great engineer, Taichi Ohno, brought these methods together to form the philosophy known as “The Toyota Production System”.
• In 1988, we first see the term “Lean” in John Krafchik’s article, Triumph of the Lean Production System.
• Next, we see the term, “Lean Manufacturing” surface as the philosophy of Lean is detailed further by James Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos in the 1990 book ‘The Machine that Changed the World.’ Womack and Jones continued to clarify the Lean Philosophy in their 1996 book, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. In that book, they laid out five key principles, “Precisely specify value by specific product, identify the value stream for each product, make value flow without interruptions, let the customer pull value from the producer, and pursue perfection”. From that time on Lean Manufacturing was a mature business philosophy.

What is Lean?

• Let’s start by saying that Lean means many things to many people. It has its purists, its revisionists, its visionaries, and its charlatans. So, it is important to think of Lean as a general school of thought rather than a specific discipline.
• Since the dawn of time, the desire to manufacture things has been a very human trait.
• Almost no other creature makes things, and humans alone engage in mass production.
• We human beings have been continually improving things for eons. Each generation improves upon the last.
• The Term Lean Manufacturing or Lean was first defined by James Womack and Daniel T. Jones in the Book Lean Thinking – Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation – 1996. They defined Lean as “a way to do more and more with less and less - less human effort, less equipment, less time, and less space - while coming closer and closer to providing customers exactly what they want."
• We at Avanulo believe that Lean is a business philosophy that calls for process owners to relentlessly pursue the reduction of variation for the benefit of the customer.
• We also believe that people will naturally seek to improve their environment, work processes, and lives whether or not there is a formal system to help them do so, and that Lean Manufacturing is a school of thought and some tools, that help us to . . . “Improve the way we improve”. Lean is a Meta-Improvement System.
• Lastly, we believe that Lean Manufacturing is mostly tactical, local, and very human. It is not a generic strategy, but an augmentation to an organization’s generic strategy.

Why is Lean an important part of a Leader’s toolbox?

• Rational Reason – Lean provides an educational base, an integrated set of methods, and a vetted set of tools, for...