Why Lean Needs Simulation

Lean methods have become the standard approach to the resolution of design and operational issues in production and other systems. However, the lean approach has deficiencies. The deficiencies that simulation can address are presented, discussed and illustrated. These deficiencies include modeling and assessing the effects of variation, making use of all available data, validating the effects of proposed changes before implementation as well identifying other possible improvements, and assessing the interaction effects between system components. Various industrial applications are presented that show that simulation was required to successfully address operational issues that the lean approach failed to identify and could not resolve