You can read about and understand the tools of lean in just about any quality management book. You can delegate the application and implementation to just about anyone--engineers, hourly workers, lean facilitators and the like. But you cannot succeed without internalizing the rules and principles of lean throughout all of management--using that thinking to guide not just the implementation, but daily decision making, problem-solving and managing.

Lean practice and implementation has been around for quite a while, so why has it taken so long for this to come to light? The simple answer is that its hard to see. Moreover, we didnt even know to look.

If you have ever taken a Toyota plant tour, youll easily see three to five specific things you could implement at your own organization. However, because there are so many visible examples, you might think the difference is in what you see. What people sometimes fail to ask is why all those ideas were created in the first place. This is where lean thinking comes into play. Lean is not about what you see; lean is about how you think.

5S--Adapted from five Japanese words that start with s, theyre rewritten as sift, sweep, sort, sanitize and sustain. It helps organize whats needed and eliminate whats not, allowing the organization to identify problems quickly.

5 Whys--A method of solving problems by asking why the problem occurred, and then why that cause occurred, five times until you get to the root cause of a problem.

Andon--The ability for an operator to pull a cord that triggers a horn and light which tells the team leader or supervisor that he or she needs help or support. Once provided, the team leader can pull the cord to keep production moving.

Jidoka--Also referred to as autonomation, jidoka means adding the human element of identifying problems and either stopping for correction or self-correcting before moving on to the next step.

Kaizen--A structured process to engage those closest to the process to improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of the process. Its goals are often to remove waste and add standardization.

Kanban--A signal that a downstream (customer) process can use to request a specific amount of a specific part from the upstream (supply) process.

SMED--Single-minute exchange of die

Visual management--Both a tool and a concept. The ideal state is that all employees, operators and managers should be able to manage every aspect of the process at a glance, using visual data, signals and guides.

About the author

Jamie Flinchbaugh is a co-founder and managing partner of The Lean Learning Center (www.leanlearningcenter.com) and has become one of the nations top thinkers and leaders in lean transformation and lean manufacturing.