The Lean Operating System

Abstract

On a recent visit to a factory, the operations manager told us that the company had ‘done lean’ a few years ago. The results had been great at first, but people had gradually reverted to their old way of doing things and the benefits had slipped away. This is a pattern we see repeated all too often.

A lean operating system follows certain principles to flow value to the customer while minimising all forms of loss.

Each value stream within the operating system must be optimised individually from end to end.

Lean tools and techniques are applied selectively to eliminate the three sources of loss: waste, variability and inflexibility.