The most dangerous phrase in today’s manufacturing—“We Leaned it out.”
SOLUTION AREA:Operational Excellence
As many of us already know, Lean is a term that depicts broad concepts within world class operations developed by Toyota following WWII. Over the past two decades, I’ve often heard leaders from different industries describe their successes by stating something along the lines of: We’ve Leaned out our factories. It’s a phrase that seems benign, yet it’s one of the most dangerous phrases a leader can use. Why? What’s wrong with this phrase?