My Introduction

I think the term 'lean' ought to be replaced with something more akin to our nature as human beings when we work together in large organizations. The whole movement that began at Toyota has been bastardized by forced suggesting a collectivistic cultured way of doing things to an individualistic cultured way of doing things. The word 'lean' is actually an American coined term, not Japanese. It was first used by John Krafcik in a 1988 academic paper entitled “Triumph of the Lean Production System” and it was subsequently adopted as the predominate buzz word in the 1990 publication of the book "The Machine That Changed The World". There is a philosophy behind this and I have been often criticized for being too philosophical and that I should keep my reporting language to the cold business bottom line results. Not including the human experience is a miscarriage of what lean is all about.

It should not be lost to us and lest we forget the human side of enterprise. Machines, systems and processes are conceptualized, designed, built, installed, operated, maintained continuously improved and innovated by people and if we are to have machine system, process reliability and operational excellence, it begins and ends with people - human beings. This is my philosophy and I contemplative of it.

New breakthroughs in anti-fragile organizational structures have emerged over the last several decades that are unlocking new levels of prosperity as a predominant approach in working with each other, our customers, our business partners, our suppliers, our shareholders and our environments. This is known as the triple bottom line of:

• ECOLOGY - Planet
• EQUITY - People
• ECONOMY - Profits