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costing and variance analysis have to be replaced by a system that will assign real costs to each product line. Every team would be given "scorecards" consisting of simple, quantitative performance indicators of productivity (expressed as sales per employee) customer service (expressed a percent of products delivered on time), inventory turns and quality (expressed as number of mistakes made by the team).

The quality team will not play just the cop' in a Lean organization. They would be responsible for continuously promoting improvements instead of focusing on quality audits and adherence to standards. There will be no warehouses or inventory build-up. The Sales team will not have to contend with excess inventory and will not have to think about inventory costs and discounts in their pricing. They can focus purely on building relationships with the customer and adding value based on the customer's requirements.

In essence, in a "Lean" environment, functions would think about the future. Their primary job would be to systematize current knowledge and procedures and teach these to function members as needed. The other function would be to search for new knowledge and summarize it in a form, which can be taught when needed. So For example - the quality department should not conduct detailed audits of products of conduct fire-fighting exercises to eliminate problems; they should develop a standard set of methods which the product teams can apply to ensure that every product is right every time with no backflows and no defects.

This also means a paradigm shift in the traditional role of the firm. The firm should provide the link between streams. It should provide the means of shifting resources people, space and tolls between value streams to optimize usage. It should focus on devising growth strategies. Because the application of lean thinking liberates tremendous amounts of resources, it is both possible and necessary to grow rapidly. Lean approach would necessitate growth along three means: (a) To rethink what can be done in a continuous flow making as many activities as possible into a single-piece-flow process. (b) To buy up small firms with allied product/service lines. (c) To rapidly introduce new products/services

With a change in role for the firm and for the specific functions, obviously, there would be a need for change in the area of employee management as well. To begin with, a lean approach would necessarily mean more of talent orientation in recruitment

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