Principles Of Lean Improvement

Lean Nation:

Today's blog will focus on understanding the five principles of lean improvement.  This article begins with the premise that the reader has an understanding of the 7 wastes + the waste of un-evenness and over-burden.  Improvement at its most fundamental is about seeing and eliminating waste.  The ability to identify waste is the first hurdle in any lean improvement. I have at least a dozen blogs on seeing waste.  Feel free to search the site and research any of the prior waste discussions.

Eliminating waste is the next step, and usually a bit harder than seeing it.  To eliminate waste using lean thinking, we apply the principles of improvement.   The five principles of lean include the following:

1. Create Flow
2. Implement Pull Systems
3. Zero Defects
4. Manage Visually
5. Practice Kaizen 

Using these five principles repeatedly will eliminate large chunks of wasted time and activity.  Each time wasted time and activity are reduced, the entire system "improves".   In a continuously improving system,  everyone works to produce the highest quality, in the shortest lead-time at the lowest cost.

Let's map the improvement principles to elimination of  the common wastes.
 

Improvement Principle	Wastes Eliminated
Flow	·         over -production ·         inventory ·         waiting ·         defects
Pull	·         inventory ·         waiting ·         over-production
Defect Free	·         defects ·         waiting
Visual Management	·         defects ·         motion
Kaizen	·         over-production ·         over-processing ·         inventory ·         waiting ·         motion ·         transportation ·         defects ·         un-evenness ·         over burden

Over the next couple of months, I will go into more detail on each of the individual improvement principles.

Lean Blessings,

Ron

Ron Bercaw
President, Breakthrough Horizons
www.breakthroughhorizons.com
Shingo Award Winning Author