Lean Thinking Explained
     
What is Lean Thinking?
Lean Tools and Techniques
Lean Benefits
Conclusion
 
Lean Thinking was introduced by Toyota in the 1960’s as a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste or non-value-add activities in an organization through continuous improvement with the goal of creating value.

The term “Lean” is used because a Lean organization:

Optimizes human effort
Uses less space
Reduces the need for capital investment
Decreases the amount of raw materials/supplies bought and consumed
Uses less time to produce and deliver products and services
 
Lean is therefore a strategy or system for remaining competitive through identifying and eliminating wasteful steps in products, services, or processes. The key principles of Lean are based on identifying 'waste' from the customer perspective, and determining how to eliminate it. Waste is defined as the activity or activities that a customer would not want to pay for, and that do not add value to the product or service from the customer's perspective. Once waste has been identified in the current or existing state, a plan is formulated to eliminate this waste, and attain a desired future state in as effective and efficient a manner as possible.

Wastes can be typically divided into the following:
 
The 7 Wastes
Example
1. Waiting

Employee or equipment idle time
2. Transportation Any movement that does not add value
3. Processing Itself Doing more work than necessary
4. Motion Wasted walking or movement
5. Poor "Quality" Errors or rework
6. Inventory Storing excess inventory / materials
7. Overproduction Servicing more, sooner, faster than required by the next step in the process

 
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