What's your definition of lean operations?

It's simple, really. Lean is all about the relentless elimination of waste, not least the waste of human ingenuity.

It is not about getting by with less than needed to do the job - that would be a false and foolish economy. And, lean can be about having enough excess and redundancy in the system to maintain business continuity. It is certainly not limited to manufacturing, although those are its roots.

In the same way that we once created a white-collar JIT game to illustrate how JIT principles applied in clerical operations, lean principles apply in 'most any system.

While any concept can become a fad, even attain cult-like status, lean is simply the latest (especially when paired with Six Sigma) aggregation of time-tested concepts, principles, techniques, and attitudes for optimized performance in a spectrum of environments.

Lean is not new. Its development began in the late 1940s, with Taiichi Ohno's pilgrimage to Ford's River Rouge operations. It has borrowed heavily from JIT, Henry Ford, W. Edwards Deming, and Joe Juran - and a host of programs, initiatives, and pioneers.

And, it is far from mere theory. Not only are there success stories beyond measure about the results of lean implementation, it has been in daily operation as the Toyota Production System for decades.

Lean is all about eliminating muda, mura, muri (Japanese terms).

Muda (waste) any activity that is not adding value. These unproductive elements can be broken down into transport, inventory, motion, waiting, over-processing, over-production, defects.

Mura (inconsistency) considers the timing of activities and is the base thinking behind just-in-time processing.

Muri (non-standard processing) considers work flow as logical, repeatable, defined process steps executed consistently by well trained workers.

Technology can be helpful but is not essential and is certainly not necessary if the cost of adding technology is higher than the more manual process.

I hope this helps.

Anyone who is in the business of "lean operations" is really in charge of helping companies with high shipping volumes to reduce transportation costs and streamline the logistics process. This includes freight and parcel invoice auditing, carrier rate analysis and negotiation solutions, supply chain optimization and consulting projects, customizable logistics reporting solutions, and carrier bill payment services.

Essentially, lean is centered on preserving value with less work.

There is much more to it that extends far beyond its 5principles. A very simple definition that works is in the last line.

"doing more with less" works for lean - with the word lean emerging from the findings of largest investigation ever undertaken into a business sector -automotive - by a large team of MIT researchers in the '80s (the book: The Machine That Changed the World)

"the elimination of waste everywhere while continually adding value for the customer."

Leans means controlled and optimized operations. There is no specific technology required, it's just a mindset of doing things the LEAN way.

I'm cynical about business fads.

While the theory is worthwhile, "lean" in practice is often about providing less than the required resources to a process in hopes that the key stakeholders will be satisfied enough. It apparently works because many stakeholders won't complain.

What is needed here is an investment in basic business education for the lower 2-3 tiers of management. Then there will some hope that "lean" theory will produce actual ongoing results.