Thinking Lean

Happy Thursday and St. Pat's Day All, 

Do you think lean thoughts?  Are you understanding lean better?  Why should you think about lean?  Do you have lean habits?

Lean, as we all talk about at PAi, is very simply the elimination of waste.  And to eliminate something you have to be able to identify it....

• D - Defects
• O - Overproduction
• W - Waiting
• N - Non-utilized Talent
• T - Transportation
• I - Inventory
• M - Motion
• E - Extra processing

Any activity that consumes resources such as time, manpower, or money, but does not add to the value of the product, is considered waste.  So, do you think lean thoughts?  Do you think about things that are consuming time that doesn't add to the value of the product?  Do you think about things that consume manpower that doesn't add to the value of the product?  Or how about thinking about things that consume money that doesn't add to the value of the product?  My guess is that each and everyone one of you think lean thoughts.

Aren't we all on the same team?  Working towards a people empowered company driven to continually accelerate the speed at which we can exceed our customers' needs while focusing on..1) our team member's quality of life, 2) company profits, 3) an increasing and scalable business with a legacy for growth. If that's the case, you should be thinking about lean and creating lean habits.

My goal is to get you thinking.  Open your mind to new and crazy ideas.  Go out and educate yourself on lean thinking.  Read "2 Second Lean" by Paul Akers.  Read "The Toyota Way."  If you don't want to read, get the audio version and listen.  The more I learn about lean thinking, the more I realize I don't know about lean thinking.

Chris