Growing with Lean

摘要

Over the last decade many companies have tinkered with lean-manufacturing concepts, but few have enthusiastically embraced all of the elements required to unleash the potential of truly lean production-management systems. However, a new investment company intends to stake its future on the potential of lean. That potential includes productivity gains approaching 400%, says George Koenigsaecker, who has spent more than two decades studying and emulating the fabled Toyota Production System-the prototype for 21st-century lean manufacturing. Benchmarking studies of Japanese firms have shown that conversions from batch production to true lean continuous- flow systems can produce fourfold productivity gains, notes Koenigsaecker, president of Pittsburgh-based Lean Investments LLC. The partnership, formed in late 1999, is banking on the prospect that it can create similar results at manufacturing operations it acquires across the U.S.