What is Lean?
The basic idea behind Lean is that anything that doesn’t add value to the customer is waste. Lean initiatives apply innovative tools and iterative continuous improvement to processes so that waste and cycle time can be eliminated, and flexibility can be optimized. Typical Lean efforts examine the route a product or service takes to get to the customer, the handoffs involved, the errors corrected and the delays encountered. Lean methods were pioneered in the automotive industry and first applied coherently as the “Toyota Production System.” They have since been adapted to many industries and today Lean methods are being used with significant results even in service and transactional businesses.
