The Principles of Lean Thinking

Abstract

In the 1980s, a massive paradigm shift hit factories throughout the US and Europe. Mass production and scientific management techniques from the early 1900s were questioned as Japanese manufacturing companies demonstrated that Just-in-Time was a better paradigm. The widely adopted Japanese manufacturing concepts came to be known as lean production. In time, the abstractions behind lean production spread to logistics, and from there to the military, to construction, and to the service industry. As it turns out, principles of lean thinking are universal and have been applied successfully across many disciplines. Lean principles have proven not only to be universal, but to be universally successful at improving results. When appropriately applied, lean thinking is a wellunderstood and well-tested platform upon which to build agile software development practices.