What is “Lean”
This one comes from the Lean Startup Circle again. Someone posed the question what is the difference (if any) between capital ‘L’ “Lean” and “lean”. Having had the opportunity to attend a David Anderson presentation on the subject of Lean Software Development, I was sufficiently armed to talk about the subject. Hopefully, I did justice by my instructor but any errors, omissions, or brute handed oversimplifications are purely my own fault. The summary follows. I’ve fleshed out the original email (that I wrote on my G1) to add more background and information.
To understand the origins of “Lean” we need to look at Toyota, for they are the originators of the Toyota Production System which was later referred to as Lean Manufacturing.
Do a quick search on "what we can learn from Toyota". You'll come up with a lot of interesting information. For example, guess how many of Toyota's American employees were laid off over the past decade? Past 20 years? 30? 40? Would you believe that they haven't had a single round of layoffs in half a century (the layoff referenced in the previous link was averted)? We worry so much about preserving "American companies" when in reality Toyota employees more American workers and treats their employees with far greater respect than any of the big three. Rather than laying employees off during thin times they move them to other plants for training and improving their infrastructure (as the Reuters link mentioned, Toyota even went so far as to pay plant workers in San Antonio their FULL SALARY while the lines were shut down). Thus when times are better they have a workforce already trained to face the new challenges of the company.
That’s fine and dandy you may say but what does this have to do with “Lean”? Everything! Toyota’s success goes far beyond their manufacturing processes. It is the entire philosophy at Toyota that still persists to this day even as the largest auto maker in the world. This philosophy can be embodied in one word “Kaizen”. The idea is to make everybody responsible for improving the process instead of dictating how things are done based on theory or “because that’s how we’ve always done things”. To put it simply who is more qualified to identify a better way of laying bricks: the guy baking in the sun who wants to get his work done and doesn’t want to have to fix that section of the wall later; or the manager who hasn’t picked up a trowel in years. Frank Gilbreth, considered the father of Business Process Management based his life’s work answering that very question. Anyway, that’s another post of it’s own we’re talking about the Kaizen philosophy. Enable…correction…encourage employees to take ownership of their work, and opportunities for improved quality AND efficiency will naturally be injected into your process.
Let’s shift gears from Kaizen and talk about Lean Manufacturing. Toyota's approach came from necessity. They had to compete overseas against entrenched competition. There was no way they could establish a dealer network AND a service chain rapidly enough to compete. The solution? Make cars that didn't fail as much. Rather than cut corners to produce cars as rapidly (and cheaply) as possible, they spent the time to make sure they released a quality product that didn't require as much maintenance. There's a reason Toyota has a reputation for making long lasting vehicles...they couldn't afford to do otherwise.
In the same regard, Toyota couldn't afford to pump out cars continuously or build up a large inventory of materials. Thus they devised a system called Kanban to control the flow of supplies. The concept was adopted from observing grocery stores. A grocer can only stock as much product as he thinks his customers will purchase before it spoils or else he wastes the product (and the money spent to purchase it).
Toyota applied this just in time supply to their manufacturing process. And thus Lean manufacturing was born allowing Toyota to go from an upstart foreigner to the largest auto manufacturer in the US. It was a commitment to quality, process, and most importantly PEOPLE that made this possible.
Make no mistake, applying Lean processes alone is not enough to ensure success. You need the right people as well and you need to engender a system of trust and excellence. You need to truly commit to the the principles. Otherwise you're just falling into the cargo cult mentality.