Here is a PowerPoint I have created after completing a Lynda certification on "Lean Foundations."

1. Lean Foundations
Created By: Kelby Schwender
Penn State Business student

2. Bottom-Line Insight

3. “A lean company works hard to eliminate waste, reduce costs, improve quality and
increase speed throughout all their business processes.”

4. Lean Defined

5. What is Lean?
● “Lean is all about the process (or processes) because lean principles and tools can be applied to every process
in every business.”
● “Lean is about efficiency, moving material, information, and ideas through a process in a smooth, well
organized manner while removing waste and decreasing cost along the way.”
● Lean has four basic goals that help to define the concept:
○ Eliminate waste
○ Reduce cost
○ Improve quality
○ Increase speed and response times

6. Why use Lean?
● “An effective lean program must start at the very top of the company as a corporate
approach, a strategy or philosophy for the entire organization, a mindset for every
employee.”
● “A strong lean strategy focuses on two very important aspects of your business, your
competitors and your customers.”
● “The best and most competitive companies are implementing lean as a corporate
strategy, integrating lean practices throughout their organization all around the
world.”

7. The need for continuous improvement
● “A Lean thinker believes that no matter how good it is right now, it can always be better.”
● “Each person must have a channel to make recommendations that are heard by the organization or if
appropriate, the authority to implement that change directly but sometimes a problem comes uo that is both
critical and immediate.”
● “Continuous improvement has become a key part of corporate culture is successful organizations. Reviewing
standard business processes is always a good place to start. Most processes where they’re designed to make
products or to provide services were designed quickly at the very beginning and unfortunately, they were
never updated.”

8. Lean Processes

9. Process mapping
● “A process map identifies the sequence of activities in that process, or the flow of materials, or the flow of
information within the process.”
● There are two basic components of a process:
○ There are tasks- “Which are the specific jobs that when sequenced correctly, create the final output of
the process.”
○ There are activities- “Which are a group of tasks that create some intermediate output.”
● “With a map of the process, you are now ready to understand and to improve your process. And that’s what
process mapping is all about.”
○ “You want to understand your process in sufficient detail, which allows you to find areas for possible
improvements.”

10. Value stream analysis
● “Continuous improvement is not about the things you do well. That’s called work. Continuous improvement is
about removing the things that get in the way of your work.” - Bruce Hamilton
● “Value Stream Analysis is all about improving your processes, removing those things that get in the way of
your work.”
● An excellent tool for value stream analysis is the Lean Improvement Cycle, a five step process:
○ Remember to start with the customer and end with the customer
○ Always keep in mind the Seven Wastes of Lean
○ Create the flow that most efficiently makes that delivery
○ Establish pull as an approach where possible
○ Seek perfection

11. Process reengineering
● “Business Process Re-Engineering asks you to rethink the way you are doing your work to help you better
serve your customers needs.”
● “Your focus is on the outcomes of the process.”
● Process to follow:
○ Describe the process
○ Determine the output of the process
○ Determine costs
○ “How can I re-engineer this process”
○ Model for process re-engineering can help you to improve your company’s performance in managing
output, controlling cost, and meeting customer expectations

12. The principle of ideality
● “The principle of ideality states that, “The most ideal solution is one that does not
exist or, for the most part, one that does not exist now.”
● “The principle of ideality can and should be used to help your organization think
without the box.”

13. The elegant solution
● “An elegant solution is one in which optimal outcome is reached with the least
amount of effort.”
● “Elegant solutions solve the problem without creating other problems that must be
solved.”
● Toyota believes these three principles create a path to allow elegant solutions:
○ Ingenuity in craft
○ Pursuit of perfection
○ Rhythm of fit

14. The cost of complexity
● “Complexity drives cost within the organization.”
● “A complex product portfolio not only drives up product cost, but increases cost for
such things as inventory, raw materials, and packaging, and also drives the
complexity and cost found in your customer base and your markets and the
organizational structure needed to support them.”
● “To add value for your customer, operate as efficiently as possible.”

15. The theory of constraints
● “Every aspect of how businesses do business comes down to this one objective,
maximize throughput.”
● “The theory of constraints proposes to maximize factory throughput by efficiently
managing the bottlenecks, the machines that are constraining or limiting throughput.”

16. Lean Manufacturing

17. Demand-driven business
● “Every aspect of your business should be focused on your customer.”
● “That’s what a demand-driven supply network is all about a network that is driven by
demand from end to customer and a system that does its job as efficiently as
possible.”
● “Once you have created a customer, your business also exists to keep that customer,
perhaps for life. Lean business processes, focused on the end customer, allow the
level of service that you need to keep putting those great products in front of your
customers.”

18. Demand-driven materials
● “The key to successfully managing materials is flow and the key to flow is having the
right materials in the right place at the right time.”
● Three step procedure for a demand driven material’s flow:
○ “Position inventory at strategic locations throughout the process.”
○ “Protect those positions with specific types and amounts of buffer inventory and you certainly will want
to make inventory adjustments real time as business conditions change.”
○ “Pull which is the process of generating and managing orders.”

19. Lean inventory
● “Holding large levels of inventory is no longer acceptable. It is simply too costly.”
● “Lean inventory management means you meet demand but at the lowest cost
possible.”
● “Lean managers make two important decisions about inventory: decide when to
produce and decide how much to produce.”
○ First measurement- Total number of units in inventory
○ Second measurement: Total value of inventory
○ Third measurement: Inventory turns

20. The pull approach
● “A pull system is driven by the customer requirements.”
● “The best way to initiate a pull approach is to start small and keep it simple, using
one produce or one process, implement Kanban. Apply whatever signal makes sense.
Practice pulling inventory through the system.”

21. Lean workstations
● “Create and maintain workstations that are clean, organized, and efficient.”
● Five S’s:
○ Sort
○ Set in order
○ Shine
○ Standardize
○ Sustain
○ “Set”-( if a 6th tool were added)
● “Implementing a five S approach to your work environment can yield big paybacks.”

22. Total productive maintenance
● “The key is to perform preventive maintenance in an effective and efficient manner.”
○ “Effective means to perform the right maintenance at the right time to ensure the equipment is ready
when needed.”
○ “Efficient means that the scheduled maintenance is done correctly and quickly.”
● Get your services back up and running as soon as possible.

23. Lean quality
● “Quality at the source means that your supplier no longer needs an outgoing final
quality check. It also means you do not need an incoming quality check of the
supplier’s material.”
● “Quality at the source can be implemented with worker training programs and a long-
term shift in the company’s quality culture.”

24. Lean Services

25. Lean delivery
● “When your customer wants your produce, they want it now.”
○ “They want fact, reliable, delivery as soon as the order is placed.”
● “Lean delivery, in short, you’re looking to send the perfect order. The right product,
in the right place, at the right time, and of course at the right cost,”

26. Lean transportation
● “Lean Transportation works hard to shorten distribution channels, and schedule
efficient delivery routes.”
● “Your implementation is very dependent upon the product itself, the demand for your
customer, and the geographical locations of your facilities. Each project will be
different.”

27. Lean logistics
● “The most expensive type of inventory is finished goods, the final product you sell to
your customer. It follows that products that are less than finished would cost less.
Raw material cost less than components, which cost less than subassemblies, which
cost less than the final product shipped from the factory, which costs less than the
final product sold to the customer.”
● Supply chain of suppliers: Manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, and customer.
● “Initiating such a lean logistics project is best done at either the end of your delivery
system, with a key customer or a key supplier. It is best to focus on one product line.”

28. Lean purchasing
● “Lean purchasing organization only buys what you need when you need it. In
addition to getting the best price possible, lean purchasing has several other goals.”
○ “Lean purchasing goes beyond just cutting costs”
○ “One goal is to prevent shortages.”
○ “A second goal is to reduce inventory where possible.”
○ “Third goal is to reduce supplier lead times.”
● “Be easy to do business with”
● “Have an effective system of evaluating your suppliers performance, and taking
corrective actions as needed.”

29. Lean Thinking

30. The lean culture
● “When implementing a significant change, like building a Lean Culture, the program
must be initiating, supported, and managed by the leaders of the company.”
● “To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.” - Winston Churchill
● Three step model developed by Kurt Lewin- Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze
○ Step one- “Unfreeze stage where you recognize the change is needed and prepare the organization for
the upcoming change.”
○ “Step two consists of all the activities to make the change.”
○ Step three- “Refreeze the organization, making the new methods permanent and in this case, changing
the corporate culture.”

31. The lean company
● “The customer has always driven the business model.”
● “When improving your lean practices, don’t limit yourself by continuing down the
same path.”

32. Lean employees
● “Lean is everyone’s responsibility.”
● “Lean thinking becomes a frame of mind that impacts every action and every decision made by everyone in
the company.”
○ “That's the destination for every lean company, achieving a lean workforce.”
■ “It requires support from the top and extensive training at all levels throughout the organization.
And equally important, it requires screening potential employees for what might be called a lean
attitude.”
● “The corporate culture becomes one of that’s just the way we do things here. And that should be a goal for
every manager today, to help your employees develop into lean employees, employees who work effectively
in cross-functional teams to resolve problems and continuously improve their company.”

33. Lean thinking for supply chains
● “Put the customer first, invent, and be patient.”
● “Applying lean principles to innovative products will bring it the practical much
sooner.”
● “When you invent your way out of a tight box remember to integrate lean practices
and principles from the very start.