What is Lean Thinking? As the name implies, it is a mindset — a way of viewing the world. Lean is about focus, removing waste, and increasing customer value. Lean is about smooth process flows, doing only those activities that add customer value and eliminating activities that don’t.
Adding value is another way of saying “generating revenue”. If it doesn’t generate revenue then it must add cost, not value
Starting the Lean Thinking Process
There are five basic steps in assessing lean operations:
Identify the activities that create value
Determine the sequence of activities (also called the value stream)
Eliminate activities that do not add value
Allow the customer to “pull” products/services
Improve the process (start over)