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Do a google search on the word "Lean". You will find about 59 million search results. I bet several of them are about weight reduction and fitness. Sure. Shows how much we Homo sapiens are obsessed with shedding unwanted weight. And the rest of the google search results will refer to lean manufacturing and "muda" and waste reduction and cost reduction. Sure. Shows how much World Inc is obsessed with the same thing. Shedding unwanted baggage. It should be. Economy watchers are predicting recessionary trends. Getting the house in order seems a good place to begin the bracing up.

The word "Lean" in management jargon is often associated with manufacturing. It is seen as the latest management tactic in the area of cost reduction. But this is only partly true. "Lean" is a holistic approach to all aspects of management. Unless all aspects of the management are tuned on to the "Lean" music, "lean" manufacturing will not be a sustainable initiative in the long run for the company or at least it will not deliver on the great potentialities that it is capable of delivering.

This is what I understand from the authoritative book on "Lean Thinking" authored by James P Womack and Daniel T Jones. Besides its obvious relevance to manufacturing due to its ability to generate tangible, visible, quantifiable results, the lean approach to management has implications on almost every aspect of the company right from the organizational design to the specific functions. Even on individual employees and their career paths.

In a Lean company, Production systems would be designed to flow only when pulled by the next step in the production process. The operating doctrine would be "not to make anything until it is needed; then make it very quickly". This needs to be supported by right sized tools to turnaround "small lots" and a strong system of visual controls to recognize the pull signals. The primary responsibility of the production function would be to develop new technologies that will support new and innovative products for customers and develop new materials and methods that will help eliminate waste.

Such a Production doctrine has to be supported by a Target Costing system that is designed to determine the "waste free cost" of the product instead of setting prices based on what they believe the market will bear and working backwards to determine acceptable costs based on a margin. Besides, the financial systems also will have to undergo a shift. The traditional systems of standard

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