The Lean Book of Lean

4 Lean Enterprise vs. Lean Manufacturing

As promised in Chapter 2, I've come back to say a few words about the difference between Lean Enterprise and Lean Manufacturing. So far in this book we have focused on the application of some of the Lean tools and techniques to specific areas of life, both in a business world and in the “real” world. This is all well and good and should make life a little better and simpler, but will it really change the game? I hinted at this one a few times so the answer shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone: no, it won't; working with one part of a dependent system will usually yield less than stellar results overall. This is the difference between Lean Enterprise and Lean Manufacturing: Lean Manufacturing takes a view of part of the business, while Lean Enterprise takes account of the whole. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with applying Lean Manufacturing and focusing on the production processes if that is where the main issues are or you are starting out and learning some of the tools and techniques. However, be aware that there is a bigger picture to take account of if the full opportunity is to be realised. In this chapter we will explore a little of what this bigger picture is and attempt to introduce how the parts contribute to the whole. I'm not going to treat each one with equal emphasis as there just isn't the space to do all full justice, but I will major on the more important areas.

Planning vs. execution

We'll start with ...