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Presented at Forum Komunikasi Ilmiah

Ma Chung University, Malang, 6 April 2010

Lean Concept: Learning to See

Sunday Noya
1

Lecturer of Industrial Engineering Department of Ma Chung

University, Malang
E-mail: sunday.alexander@machung.ac.id

Abstract
Lean concept nowadays is widely applied by organisations
worldwide. Born in the factories of Toyota Motor Corp., lean
was invented to generates efficiencies and helps company
continuously cut production costs. The basic operational
principle of lean is identifying and eliminating waste non
value added activities through endlessly improvement by
processing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of
perfection. Using its principles, values, elements and
strategies, this concept reaps success reaching its goal to
create the most efficient and wasteless work system in every
organisation applying it. Hence, this remarkable concept is
currently adopted by many non-manufacturing organisations.
Keywords: lean, eliminating waste, efficient process

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Introduction
Since most of organizations in the world compete to
build efficient processes in their working system, an
effective concept is needed to guide this effort. Lean is
one of the most common concepts applied in many
manufacture companies. Born in the factories of Toyota
Motor Corp., lean concept has an objectives to reduces
waste, generates efficiencies and helps companies
continuously cut production costs. Lean works through a
simple idea: continuous improvement and innovation
leads to value creation and the elimination of waste
Lean history started in 1945, when Sakichi Toyoda, the
owner of Toyota Motor Corp. challenged Toyotas Chief
Engineer, Taiichi Ohno to learn how to compete with US
Automakers not on building large volumes of similar
models, but many models in low volume. Then Ohno
went to the US and studied Ford mass assembly
processes at the Rouge River Plant. Ohno also studied
the supermarket concept of ordering and replenishing
stock by a signal system. These learning experiences
gave ideas for Ohno to develop the system that became
known as The Toyota Production System (TPS), the
system which is currently known as lean.

Literature Review
According to Carrol, lean concept is a systematic
approach to identify and eliminate waste non value
added activities through continuous improvement by

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processing the product at the pull of the customer in

pursuit of perfection (Boone, 2010).
Most waste is invisible. The main obstacle is the fact
that waste often hides in plain sight, or is built into
activities. By using the Lean tools, we are learning to
see them, so we can eliminate, simplify or reduce them.
At the same time when developed lean concept Ohno
also identified seven common wastes in every
production process (Noya, 2006): Overproduction producing items for which there are no orders; waiting
Time - employees standing about; unnecessary
transport - moving material unnecessarily over long
distances; over-processing - using more steps to
produce a product than necessary; excess inventory retaining unnecessary inventory between workinprocess steps; unnecessary movement any wasted
motion by man or machine; and defect - making
incorrect products.
The main goal of lean concept is to eliminate these
waste in every area of the organization until perfection
(zero waste) is met. Logically, zero waste is impossible,
consequently, this lead to endless improvement.
Although lean is an applicable concept, it is not a
collection of best practices from which manufacturers
can pick and choose. It is a production philosophy, a
way of conceptualizing the manufacturing process from
raw material to finished goods and from design concept
to customer satisfaction ( Standard, 1999). Lean is truly
a different way of thinking about manufacturing.
Applying lean means using its principles, tools,
elements, and strategies to enhance processes. There
are five basic principles of lean: value, value stream,
flow, pull and perfection. Value defining what is required

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by customer in product or service. An activity that does

not add value is considered to be waste. Value stream
is the sequence of processes from raw material to the
customer that create value. The process of adding value
must be in flow condition. It also a part of pull system,
system that make only what is needed by the customer.
Finally, all the process must always be improved to
reach perfection.
In order to make the process efficient there are also
some strategies applied in lean system such as
equipment reliability; small lot production ideally one
piece at a time, less inventory required throughout the
production process, raw material, work in process, and
finished goods; defect reduction; lead time reduction; in
station process control; and, standardised work.
The increase of the productivity of the working system is
also supported by some elements and tools of lean.
Some of them are mentioned as: pull system - a method
of controlling the flow of resources by replacing only
what has been consumed; kanban - system of
continuous supply of components, parts and supplies;
visual management - any communication device used in
the work environment; takt time - the available
production time divided by customer demand; work cell
- a work unit larger than an individual machine or
workstation but smaller than the usual department;
kaizen continuous improvement; and value stream
mapping a tool to identify waste in the process.
The results of implementing lean concepts in processes
normally great improvements in productivity, lead time
reduction and error reduction in the 30-50% range
(Standard, 2009).

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Regarding its success and its nature as a concept that

applicable to any system as long as the system has a
structure of flow process, in the late 90s, lean concepts
started to be adopted in many non-manufacturing
organizations.

Conclusions
Lean is a concept applied in process management with
an objective to create the most efficient work system by
identifying and eliminating all waste in the process.
Lean is not a collection of best practices, it is a way of
thinking, a culture with all its principles, values,
elements and strategies that suitable to any process.
Therefore, this concept not exclusively related to only a
manufacturing system but also applicable to any system
with a sequence proces.

References
Boone, E. 2010. Going Lean. ABI/INFORM Global,
February: pg. 102.
Noya, S. 2007. Value Stream Mapping. Unpublished.
Sayer, N. J., William, B., 2007. Lean for Dummies. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Standard, C., 1999. Running Todays Factory: A Proven
Strategy for Lean Manufacturing. Cincinati:
Hanser Gardner Publication.
Wakabayashi, D. 2010. The Toyota Recall: How Lean
Manufacturing Can Backfire. Wall Street Journal,
30 January: pg. B.5.
Womack, J. P., Jones, D. T., Roos, D., 1990. The
Machine that Changed the World. New York:
HarperCollins.

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Blossom, P. 2009.
Brief History of Lean.
http://leanpracticecoach.com/brief-history-of-lean/

Capsule Summaries of Key Lean Concepts.

Brookline:
Lean
Enterprise
Institute.
www.lean.org
Lean is a Practice, not a Theory. Brookline: Lean
Enterprise Institute. www.lean.org
Mr. Google

2010