Lean Terms
Terms are listed most recent first. Check back often to see when we post new Lean content.
Lean Terms
Inventory
Inventory is the collective term for finished goods that you intend to sell, and the components that go into those goods. Inventory is a necessary evil of production. Without inventory, nothing could be built, and nothing could be sold. But too much inventory drives up costs. Inventory must be stored, Read more…
Lean Terms
Cooperation
Cooperation is the act of tailoring your activities to work with someone else’s in order to achieve a specific result. Cooperative relationships are generally informal. They tend to be successful because there is overlap in what both parties want to achieve-the intersection of both of their goals. While all parties Read more…
Lean Terms
80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule states that 80 percent of the effects of something come from 20 percent of the causes. The 80/20 rule is also known as the Pareto Principle after the Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who first mathematically analyzed the distribution of wealth in Italy. The 80/20 rule helps prioritize Read more…
Lean Terms
Standardized Work Sheets
Standardized Work Sheets are another name for Standard Work Sheets, the more common of the names, as well as the entry under which we post our free form. They are one of the basic forms used for documenting Standard Work in Lean.
Standardized Work Sheets show header information, defining the process, and they show the layout of the area on graph paper.
Lean Terms
Gauge R&R
Gauge Repeatability & Reproducibility (Gauge R&R) uses a mathematical method to analyze the variation in a measurement system. Gauge R&R uses a statistical tool called ANOVA, or analysis of variance. It allows the person conducting the testing to separate out the variation cause by the operator, the gauge itself, and Read more…
Lean Terms
Toyota® Production System
The Toyota® Production System began in earnest in post-World War II Japan as a way of managing operations in a challenging economic time. The Toyota Production System really began as a synthesis of Henry Ford’s operations and those of the U.S. supermarket system. Taiichi Ohno, often credited as the founder Read more…
Lean Terms
Six Sigma
“Six Sigma®” is one of two most common continuous improvement methods. Lean is the other. The term Six Sigma comes from the Greek letter ‘σ’ (sigma) that is used as the symbol for standard deviation. Six Sigma refers to how many standard deviations of the measured output of a process Read more…
Lean Terms
A3 Process
The A3 process is a methodology for getting to the root cause of a problem and addressing it in a way that will permanently eliminate it. Following the A3 process entails a large amount of back-and-forth between managers and their teams. For that reason, the A3 process is well-matched to Read more…
Lean Terms
A3 Problem Solving
A3 problem solving is a structured approach to resolving problems. It was popularized by Toyota but is now in widespread use. A3 problem solving is hard to replicate because it requires discipline to use it and persistence to go through the iterative steps of coming up with a resolution. It Read more…
Lean Terms
A3 Management
A3 management is a structured way of running a business. A3 management focuses on using a scientific approach to problem solving that creates a learning organization. The key to A3 management is that there must be management problem solving processes in place. This means that there is a specific way Read more…