What is the difference between lean manufacturing and a lean enterprise?
The first thing you will learn about lean manufacturing is that implementing it is a journey, not a quick fix. Many manufacturers eager for instant results try to steal the “quick fix” parts of lean manufacturing and force them into their existing plans to attack waste. Experts suggest that if you go lean, you have to be completely dedicated to it, adopt it wholeheartedly. Otherwise, you may experience some short-haul benefits, but you will most likely not be prepared for long-term challenges. Individual lean manufacturing practices often do not really make much of an impact. The only way to experience the full benefits of lean is through lean as a system, as a total system. To become a lean enterprise means that change has to occur at all levels from accounting, to upper management, to the shipping docks. Everyone in the organization has to accept lean as a lifestyle and be dedicated to the long term application and continuous improvements associated with it. Added to that you may als
