Principles of Lean Thinking

Womack and Jones defined the five principles of Lean manufacturing in their book The Machine That Changed the World. These five principles are considered a roadmap for improving workplace efficiency.

Value – What the customer is willing to pay for. It is crucial to understand the actual or latent needs of the customer and how they want a product or service delivered.

Value Stream Map – The goal is to use the customer’s value as a guide point, then map out all of the activities that contribute to the value. Any activities that do not contribute to value are waste and must be eliminated.

Create Flow – To ensure that the flow remains fluid without interruptions or delay. Create a value chain with no interruption in the production process and a state where each activity is fully in step with every other.

Establish Pull – Inventory is one of the biggest wastes in any production system. The goal of a pull-based system is to limit inventory and work in process (WIP) items while ensuring that the requisite materials and information are available for a smooth flow of work.

Pursue Perfection – Each employee should strive towards perfection while delivering products based on customer needs and values. The company should be a learning organization and always find ways to get a little better each and every day.

The principles encourage creating better flow in work processes and developing a culture of continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.