Lean is often touted as a means of generating cash savings that flow to the bottom line, but those savings often fail to materialize. In fact, the single biggest contributor to failed lean initiatives is a lack of effective management and governance. Successful lean programs organize people and assets at scale and drive them toward a clearly defined endpoint within a fixed time period.
The philosophy and practice of lean have taken hold at large manufacturers worldwide. Now smaller manufacturers are adopting it as well—and in the process discovering some of the myths around lean’s purported flaws and shortcomings.
In this article, the first in a series, we take on the myth that lean implementations take too long to pay off.
"Only 30% of companies surveyed by AlixPartners on the effectiveness of manufacturing-improvement programs achieved savings of more than 5% of production costs."