TRIZ as a Lean Thinking Tool

Lean Thinking is a highly evolved method of managing an organization to improve the productivity, efficiency and quality of its products or services. The core principle it uses is that no work should be done unless it is going to create customer value. Traditionally Lean tools were Value Stream mapping, Quick Changeover/Setup Reduction, Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED), Kaizen, Flow Manufacturing, Visual Workplace/5S Good Housekeeping, Total Productive maintenance (TPM) and Pull/Kanban Systems. Companies and organizations employing these tools report significant gains in productivity and overall effectiveness within their specific entities. TRIZ Plus can be effectively used as a lean tool to support almost all lean principles as the experience of Kawasaki Steel Group clearly showed. The ideas behind what is now termed Lean thinking were originally developed in Toyota's manufacturing operations - known as the Toyota Production System - an spread through its supply base in the 1970's, and its distribution and sales operations in the 1980's. The term was popularized in the book "The Machine that Changed the World" which clearly illustrated the significant performance gap between the Japanese and western automotive industries. It described the key elements accounting for this superior performance as lean production - "lean" because Japanese business methods used less of everything - human effort, capital investments, facilities, inventories and time - in manufacturing, product development, parts supply and custom relations. Lean Thinking is a highly evolved method of managing an organization to improve the productivity, efficiency and quality of its products or services. The core principle it uses is that no work should be done unless it is going to create customer value. Work should be performed in the simplest, most efficient way to maximize the smoothest throughput of product and services from you to the customer. Here is an example. A large truck manufacturing company inspected every returned part from its dealers against initial orders and inventory before a credit would be issued. Implementing this process cost the company millions of dollars each year. The dealers were irate because of the required justification, the time lag and their carrying cost. The Lean Thinking project of this process showed that the value of 90% of returned parts was less than the cost of the whole process, without even considering the impact on dealer goodwill. The company changed its policy - no returns are checked unless the part exceeds a certain dollar value. As the result the process