Lean principles

13 important questions on Lean principles

Which two problems should be solved with Toyota Production System?

  1. small home market required flexible production to manufactore different types of cars: no resources for many plants and too many different products
  2. short cycle times essential for capital flow: reduce the time between purchasing materials and being paid by the customer

How are the 5 principles seen by Christis & Soepenberg

  1. specify value as defined by customer is not specifically addressed
  2. design flows is sen as the main point
  3. aim for perfection is important last step

How do lean and STSD relate (variability)?

  • core aspect of lean and STSD: abandon batch & queue systems and design flows
  • ashby: minimises disturbances (attenuating) and enhances regulatory capacity (amplifying)
  • reduces functional concentration and separation between performance and control activities
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What does functional de-concentration (formation of value streams) entail?

Organise according to value streams:
  • market-based grouping
  • business segment: product family/customer family
  • restricted set of similar orders
this works because it:
  • reduces complexity of production structure by placing interdependent activities in the same unit
  • this in turn reduces coordination needs and enables simplified planning

How should you design flows?

  1. abandon functional departments: process improvement by work flow in a product family
  2. create single piece flow: avoid work-in-progress, batch & queue
  3. just in time delivery; reduce lead time and reduce inventory
  4. takt time defined by demand of next process; fewer order --> slower takt time

How can you reduce undesirable sources of variability?

Variability in demand
  • customers want different things at different times
  • demand can fluctuate depending on financial market, currency exchange, competitor activity
variability in transformation process: production is not always consistent due to:
  • unreliable equipment
  • lack of standardised procedures
  • uncontrolled of environmental conditions
  • late deliveries from suppliers
  • large production lots

What does the reduction of variability lead to?

  • shorter cycle times
  • lower work-in-progress
  • faster response time
  • better customer service

What possible buffers are there to deal with variability?

  1. time; demand waits for products
  2. inventory: product is finished before demand
  3. capacity: idle resources

Traditional bureaucracy is aimed at resource utilisation through a functional structure: leads to wastes in terms of waiting time in inventory

What are the differences between a bureaucratic organisation and a modular organisation?

  • bureaucratic: huge triangle with high functional specialisation --> high coordination needs --> high hierarchical specialisation
  • modular: cross trained teams with team ownership and delegated planning

What does the integration fo preparatory & support functions entail?

  • womack & jones; spreading overhead costs; hides it
  • decentralised planning & support in office cell; reduce coordination needs and enables bottom-up costing based on what team actually does

Why does lean need reliability?

Cell system only works if all steps are designed properly
  • standard work= best practices
  • works write their own job descriptions
  • poor maintenance can stop cell flow


--> reduce variability
--> invest in preventive maintenance
--> use routines, but remain alert if they actually work

What does the 5th principle entail?

  • Aim for perfection: There is always room for improvement
  • Standard work: current gold standard – gets revised when problems occur
  • Avoid Kamikaze Kaizen: first install flow production and pull planning, only then start continuous improvement

What are critical voices about lean stating?

Lean can go dramatically wrong if you don’t do it right:
  • JIT disaster
  • Insufficient knowledge about lean philosophy
  • Lack of senior management support
Lean does not come with morals – you need to bring your own
  • Lean thinking can be part of sustainability programme
  • Lean & mean refers to taking away too much
  • Does not necessarily lead to meaningful work 

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