What LEAN is really about
Myths, Half-truths and Insights
The essence of LEAN is often obscured by a superficial or selective focus on certain facets. I navigate past some myths and half-truths surrounding LEAN, to reveal its true power to transform.
LEAN is about…
Cost reduction?
Let’s start with the biggest myth first. Like all myths, it’s based on a truism. LEAN has a focus on eliminating non-value add activities. This saves time, which translates automatically to cost savings. LEAN does save costs. So absolutely, LEAN is about cost reduction.
LEAN, however, is more than just superficial cost reduction. It’s about the right type of cost reduction, done in the right way and sustainably.
LEAN is not is about indiscriminate cost-cutting. Slash and burn is not LEAN. Straight up cost or staff cutting measures disguised as LEAN is also not LEAN. When used cynically or for ulterior motives, the net result is the destruction of value or capability, which has long terms costs and strategic implications.
To use a dietary metaphor, LEAN is not about starvation, but rather about reducing superfluous fat.
Reducing Time?
Like the cost reduction statement, there’s a great deal of truth here also. Processes are a set of activities performed by actors in a sequence. Time is the currency for process, production, product, demand and value. By removing waste, we save time. So absolutely, LEAN is about time reduction.
Like cost, LEAN is about the right type of time reduction, done in the right way and sustainably. It’s important to distinguish between where time is being saved. Time should be saved from non-value add activities. Indiscriminate or broad-brush time cutting (through thoughtless elimination of activities) results in a collapse of capability and destruction of value — the very thing that LEAN aspires to maximize!
The defining principle here is time to value. LEAN is about reducing time to value. If the customer’s value proposition is not enhanced as a result, time reduction is meaningless.
Waste reduction?
Waste reduction is the most instantly recognizable facet of LEAN. The acronym TIMWOOD is well known as a memorable way to reflect the 7 wastes in operations. Without a doubt, LEAN is absolutely about reducing waste.
This, however, is not the full story. While minimizing waste is key to realizing value LEAN also focusses on reducing unevenness and overburden. Waste, unevenness and overburden are the three vices that LEAN seeks to conquer. The important point is that these three are related, overlap often, and also influence each other! Reducing one may reduce the other however excessive reduction or focus on one aspect can detrimentally impact the other. Balance is important across all three to obtain flow, a fundamental tenet of LEAN.
LEAN brings time-tested concepts and tools for process improvement. However, if applied superficially the result will be sub-optimal at best.
Increasing value?
The purpose of LEAN is to increase value to the customer. The starting and endpoint of LEAN is value. It starts with identifying value and then strives to deliver value most efficiently and effectively. The delivery of value, of course, is not one-time or static. It is also never truly complete. There is always room for improvement. Seeking perfection, therefore, a natural aspiration, and a key principle of LEAN thinking. Perfection is sought through continual improvement.
LEAN is about value. This is a complete and precise truism.
However, if we stop our discovery at this point, the essence of LEAN and its true capability might be missed. LEAN adds value across multiple dimensions. Value-added processes are only the start. The true ‘end-game’ is adding value at the human level.
LEAN is really about…
Building capability
The toolset of LEAN, when combined with the ethos of Kaizen (continuous improvement) creates an environment of collaborative problem-solving. Continuous problem solving enables learning and helps grow leaders who understand the immediate work and how it aligns with the overall outcome they are working towards.
LEAN has its origins in Toyota’s Production System (TPS). The Toyota Way, a set of principles and behaviours that encapsulates Toyota’s operations and management, brings these effects together succinctly in the form of 4 principles:
- Long-Term Philosophy
- The Right Process Will Produce the Right Results
- Add Value to the Organization by Developing Your People
- Continuously Solving Root Problems Drives Organizational Learning
The virtuous cycle being developed here is easy to see. LEAN starts from a process perspective and leads (naturally) to a collaborative problem-solving culture that empowers people which in turn adds value to the organization. This is in addition to the value addition at process and product level that LEAN facilitates. While its tangible benefits (time, cost, waste reduction) are more well-known, the “softer” benefits that LEAN can lead to (capability uplift, improvement culture, respect for people) are the hidden gems.
Toolset? Mildest? Or Philosophy? LEAN can be conceptualized and understood at all of these levels.
Originating as an antithesis to wasteful manufacturing practices, LEAN brought a new paradigm for efficient, effective and customer-centric operations. LEAN is more than a mere toolset. It’s a methodology and indeed a philosophy that bakes in quality at the process level and capability at a people level.
When used as a set of techniques, it can add value at a process level. When the full potential of LEAN is understood, it can catalyze higher, holistic and bountiful outcomes for an organization, its people and customers.
