Lean QuickStart Guide_ The Simplified Beginner’s Guide to Lean - PDF Room

materials can also be disrupted, causing other waste events in the areas of muri
and mura (overburden and unevenness). With the replacement of traditional
“push” production systems and a focus on smaller batch production,
organizations have found manufacturing and production protocols to help reduce
waste events linked to excessive production.
2. A Broad View
While the first aspect deals with the all-important process of identifying—and
reducing—waste, the second component of Lean philosophy deals with strategy
and planning. Lean focuses on thinking strategically and incorporating long-term
planning into everyday operations. An organization’s success should be viewed
with a focus on the long term and in the context of the industry-at-large; shortterm
gains are not a reliable measure of success. This approach is not intended to
trivialize short-term development, but rather to put it in perspective toward
maintaining a competitive advantage within a given industry.
If, for example, a firm’s goal is to acquire the lion’s share of the market within
which they operate, then a large variety of factors must be taken into account. If
this firm’s (Firm A) sales goals are consistently beaten by 9 percent each quarter,
that is certainly good news. When taking a broad view, however, the firm sees
that a competitor (Firm B) is consistently beating their own sales goals by 11
percent. This is still not quite the big picture and doesn’t present instructive
insight.
Firm B owns a smaller market share than Firm A, and though sales are on the
rise, that smaller market share translates into lower overall profits. While Firm B
is making aggressive sales, Firm A is still on track to their strategic goals. This
contextualizes the rate of Firm B’s growth, and can help decision makers at Firm
A further realize their organization’s goals.
Conceptually, the broad view approach can be implemented at the day-to-day
level by matching tactical and operational tasks and decisions with strategic
level goals and avoiding tunnel vision style production. Tunnel vision
production focuses on the product or the process and not on the customer,
therefore making non-value-added activities harder to detect and, in many cases,
leading to excessive production.
Firm A’s strategic goal was to control the largest market share in each of its
businesses’ product lines, but perhaps the strategic goal of Firm B was to offer
superior service and quality. These broad view strategies can be reduced to their