This is Lean - Welcome to the Wild West

Book Notes - This is Lean by Niklas Modig

Welcome to the Wild West - We call it Lean

Toyota Production System (TPS)
Although the term lean was created with toyota as a starting point - lean and TPS are two different concepts
Ohno defines the Toyota Production System.

Taiichi Ohno - referred to as the 'father' of TPS
Ohno rejected economies of scale and large scale production and maintained that productivity was created through flow.
'reducing the time-line by reducing the non-value adding wastes.

Best selling book - The Machine that Changed the World - published in 1990
The book was the result of many years of research and showed how Toyota successfully managed to achieve productivity and quality levels that none of its competitors could.
The book argued that lean is made up of four core principles

Specify value form the standpoint of the customer
Identify the value stream and eliminate all steps that don’t add value
Make the remaining value creating steps flow - so product flows smoothly towards the customer.
When the flow is established let the customer pull value upstream from the next upstream activity.
Process starts all over again

Argues that the key to Toyota success is the capability of always ensuring development, regardless of what setbacks or obstacles the company may encounter.

All work shall be highly specified in terms of content, sequence, timing and outcome.
Every customer supplier connection must be direct.
The pathway for every product and service must be simple and direct
Any improvement must be made in accordance with the scientific method

Although lean was originally developed within the manufacturing industry - the concept has been adapted to other functions.
With so many books available - it is difficult to distinguish between what lean is and what lean is not.
There is no single generally accepted definition of Lean.

What Lean is Not

The higher the level of abstraction, the more general the definition
The lower the abstraction level - the more specific the definition.
The first question was 'what is lean' the answers can be divided into seventeen different categories or definitions of lean
The fact that there are so many definitions is a clear sign that in practice, lean is defined at different levels of abstraction.
Some have gone so far as to choose just one of the methods Toyota developed and equate that to lean.

Others have focused on identifying and describing all the tools that Toyota has developed. They present an entire lean 'toolbox'

If lean is defined at a low level of abstraction, an organization risk misunderstanding what lean is all about.
Limits the applicability of lean with it is taken into other industries or sectors of society.
Many organizations start their lean journey using the methods and tools that toyota developed. This means that they risk losing the deeper thinking around lean and tend to ignore the why behind the use of the tools.
Reactions like these lead to organizations concluding that lean is not for them.
The higher the level of abstraction at which lean is defined, the more general the definition.
Defining lean at the wrong level of abstraction creates high risk that it will be abandoned.

The means describes how - the goal describes the why
The problem with focusing on the means instead of the goal is that the connection between the means and the goal is not the same for everyone.
The focus on the goal creates flexibility, whereas a focus on the means may create limitations.
There has been a strong focus on how Toyota works by emphasizing and defining its values, principles, methods and tools
A problem arises when the focus falls on 'which means' toyota uses - rather than asking and understanding 'why' these means were used, that is to say, the goal behind toyota's philosophy.
Confusing means and goals often causes an organization to overlook why it is going through a change process.
The means have become the goal - the organization sees itself as 'lean' just because it successfully implemented a specific tool or specific method.

Problem 3: Lean is everything that is good - and everything that is good is lean

63 respondents provided as many as 45 different reasons
The answers indicate every conceivable positive result - regardless of the type organization.
Lean is not the answer to all the problems.