Understanding the basics of Lean Thinking

In their book Lean Thinking, James Womack and Daniel Jones summarized the five principles of Lean Thinking as follows:

Precisely specify value by specific product, identify the value stream for each product, make value flow without interruptions, let the customer pull value from the producer, and pursue perfection.

These five principles – value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection – form the foundations of Lean Thinking. In this section, we will explore each of these five Lean principles in some detail. Before we get into the details, however, let's start with the basics.

The original concepts of the Lean movement were born in the Toyota Motor Company and are maintained by Toyota to this day in what is now referred to as the Toyota Production System (TPS). Toyota continues to promote the guiding principles of Lean and its managerial approach and production as a philosophy called The Toyota Way.

The founder...