The Hardest Part of Lean is to See the Waste.pdf

The history of lean manuf acturing shows that it is usually f easible, if not downright simple, to eliminate waste f rom a process. This cannot happen, though, until the waste is recognized f or what it is. One of Henry Ford's key success secrets was the ability to identif y waste that others overlooked even though it was (with the benef it of hindsight) in plain view, and this skill is this article's key takeaway. The specif ic technologies or process improvements in the examples may or may not be applicable to the reader's industry, but their chief purpose is to illustrate the thought process behind them.