The Six Sigma Handbook, Revised and Expanded, 2nd Edition

20.1. INTRODUCTION TO LEAN AND MUDA

Lean Production's origins date back to the post-World War II era in Japan. It was developed by Taiichi Ohno, a Toyota production executive, in response to a number of problems that plagued Japanese industry. The main problem was that of high-variety production required to serve the domestic Japanese market. Mass production techniques, which were developed by Henry Ford to economically produce long runs of identical product, were ill-suited to the situation faced by Toyota. Today the conditions faced by Toyota in the late 1940s are common throughout industry and Lean is being adopted by businesses all over the world as a way to improve efficiency and to serve customers better.

The Lean approach (the term Lean ...