LSS: What is Lean?

Lean is one of the most powerful business improvement methods ever created.

If you use Lean correctly your business is going to improve and you are going to be more successful.

If you don't use Lean correctly, and your opponents do, they are going to beat you and put you out of business.

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So, what is Lean?

The simplest explanation of Lean is this: it is a method for eliminating waste from your business.

A Lean business is one that is continually striving to eliminate waste, continually striving to attain that perfect state where there is no waste at all.

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So, what is waste?

Lean businesses remember the one fundamental rule of success: there is nothing more important than serving your customers. If you serve customers better than your competitors than you will succeed. If your competitors serve customers better than you then THEY will succeed and you will NOT.

If we remember that serving customers is the supreme goal of the business then remembering what waste is will be easy: waste is anything that does not serve the customer!

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So, what is the result of doing Lean correctly?

If you serve customers with single-minded devotion, and you do it better than any of your competitors, than you will end up with more orders from existing customers, your customers will be more satisfied, more delighted, and more loyal, and you will have more new customers.

If you combine these customer advantages with having less waste than your competitors then you will be using less money and less time and fewer other resources than they do, which means you will be more profitable.

Therefore, the ultimate result of doing Lean correctly is higher long-term profits than your competitors.

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So, based on all of the above, this is the definition of Lean I use:

Lean is a method for achieving higher long-term profits than your competitors by radically focusing on your customer's needs and eliminating all waste from your organization.

Many people refer to the proccess of implementing Lean in a business as a "journey" because it takes time. There is work involved and attitudes to change and many things to learn that may seem far from intuitive. But if you think the destination is worth the journey, and if you are willing to make the trip, then at least there is no doubt what the road is: the road is called Lean.

[If you want to start a Lean journey this book will help.

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Copyright © 2016 by Joseph Wayne Gadway