Leading and Managing the Lean Management Process

CHAPTER 7

Sustainability: The Current Lean Frontier

Looking back to the mid-1950s, it is relatively easy to understand how the challenging financial circumstances led Kiichiro Toyoda, Taiichi Ohno, Shigeo Shingo, and others at Toyota to pioneer the frequently cited seven Lean principles noted in Table 1.1 in Chapter 1. Upon reflection, the reader will understand that these seven principles were observed in a single facility and were aimed at internal organizational improvements and waste reduction.¹ For example, internal activities, such as the accumulation of inventories, the movement of material, and the production of defective goods, result in the unnecessary consumption of resources.

Recently, sustainability has emerged as the evolutionary ...