Lean attitude [considering attitude in lean production]

One of the most vexing and enduring puzzles of lean is that, although many plants try to go lean, few succeed. This fact has been noted by many but, beyond the obvious need for management commitment, the reasons why lean proves so hard to implement are still largely mysterious. In a seminal book, the authors shrewdly note that there is much more to lean than a JIT toolbox. For these authors, lean is a perspective, a way to look at operational systems through the special lenses of value, flow, pull and perfection. Fundamentally there is a general agreement with this point of view, and in fact, the few companies that have successfully implemented lean in some of their operations have approached it as a system, rather than just a toolbox. Successful lean implementation requires a slightly different understanding of lean, not only as a perspective, but as an attitude. This paper discusses the implementation of lean, focusing not only on the cognitive dimension but also on the affective and behavioural dimensions.