a significant consulting and book writing industry built up around this word. The intention of introducing the term “lean” in The Machine that Changed the World was to evoke an image of a holistically healthy organization, like a lean athlete, that can accomplish remarkable things doing more with less. This original concept has been morphed and confused by many organizations with the help of consultants and journal- ists with only a superficial understanding of lean. Jeff tried to sort this out in his original book, The Toyota
Way, with a four-level model focusing on a foundation of the philosophy, processes which ideally flow value to the customer without waste, people who are continually challenged and improving processes and themselves, and problem-solving as a lean mindset. Fourteen principles detailed the “4P model.” While the book received a great reception, it was clearly not enough as companies continue to struggle to “implement lean in a sustainable way.” In fact, after years of frustration in trying to teach the whole system, neither of us could point to
Why lean processes are sustained and improved at Toyota.
a single organization that has anywhere near the consistency and depth of continuous improvement at Toyota. Even more alarming, we found that companies had begun to ‘outsource’
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