Lean Principles

Taiichi Ohno started with Just-In-Time and autonomation, the two pillars of the Toyota Production System. Modern-day Lean has settled on five principles and a wide array of practices that have been distilled from the Toyota Production System and the experiences of other companies that have followed Toyota’s lead. These five principles are identified as Value, Value Stream, Flow, Pull, and Perfection:

Value

Value is defined by the customer. What does the customer value in the product? You have to understand what is and what is not value in the eye of the customer in order to map the value stream.

Value stream

Once you know what the customer values in your product, you can create a value stream map that identifies the series of steps required to produce the product. Each step is categorized as either value-added, non-value-added but necessary, or non-value-added waste.

Flow

The production process must be designed to flow continuously. If the value chain stops moving forward (for any reason), waste is occurring.

Pull

Let customer orders pull product (value). This pull cascades back through the value stream and ensures that nothing is made before it is needed, thus eliminating most in-process inventory.

Perfection

Strive for perfection by continually identifying and removing waste.

In the next chapter, we will see how these Lean principles can be applied to software development.

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