King Lean Research Paper

2.4.4 History

For the first time the term Lean appeared in the article “Triumph of the lean production system” by Krafcik in 1988. However, Lean became known through the book “The machine that changed the world” by Womack et al. in 1990 [31]. While the first mention of Lean falls on the last decades of the XX century, the origins of Lean belong to an earlier period.

In 1574 King Henry III of France built galley ships in a short time using a continuous flow system [30]. In the middle of the XVIII century Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) in his studies mentioned about waste elimination and inventory control [30]. At the end of the XVIII century Eli Whitney (1765-1825) created interchangeable parts, which were invented while he was working on manufacturing

After a three-month trip they came up with a conclusion that Ford’s system is not suitable to be fully implemented in Toyota: the market was small and diverse, and the labor force was different [30]. Taking into account all these features, Toyoda and Ohno developed their own production system: they introduced a flow technique through the process, distribution of materials according to demand, the use of Kanban to connect all production stages, link organization with suppliers and ensure in time delivery [34]. These techniques facilitated the identification of market demand, reduction of lead times and elimination of excess inventory [33]. All these methods formed a system that became known as “Toyota Production System” (TPS), which led the company to success and due to which Toyota became one of the world’s leading

Value specification

Value is the first step, which needs to be identified in Lean thinking. Value of a product can be defined as an extent of significance and need for the customer at specific time and for what he is willing to pay. Customer is one who gets the goods or services produced or provided by the company or organization [30]. The customer defines what the value is. Questions such as “What does customer want?”, “When does he want it and at what price?”, “Which properties and features should present?” help to specify the value for the customer [33].

2. Value stream identification

Value stream is the term used to describe how activities and processes are combined together in order to produce a good or service [30]. All activities within a process can be value-adding or non-value adding. Value-adding activity should meet all three points below [30]:

• The customer is willing to pay for it.

• The activity contributes to the transformation of a product or service into an end result.

• The activity should be done right the first