Lean

Lean Defined

Lean is a management philosophy focusing on reduction of the seven wastes to improve overall customer value. By eliminating waste, quality is improved and production time and costs are reduced.Federal Government

Lean Applied

To solve the problem of waste, Lean has several tools at its disposal. These include constant process analysis (Kaizen), pull production and mistake-proofing. The seven wastes a Lean Enterprise seeks to eliminate are:

  • Overproduction (making more than what is needed or making it earlier than needed)
  • Transportation (moving products farther than is minimally required)
  • Waiting (products waiting on the next production step or people waiting for work to do)
  • Inventory (having more inventory than is minimally required)
  • Motion (people moving or walking more than minimally required)
  • Processing itself
  • Defects (the effort involved in inspecting for and fixing defects)

Lean at Thomas Group

Lean is basically all about getting the right things, to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity while minimizing waste and being flexible and open to change. More importantly, all of these concepts have to be understood, appreciated, and embraced by the actual employees who build the products and therefore own the processes. The cultural aspect of Lean is just as important as the actual tools or methodologies.