A misunderstanding of the concepts of tools and their relationship to business processes ?along with a name disadvantage ?can lead to the downfall of a Lean implementation

By Mike Thelen


During both prosperous and difficult times, successful businesses naturally look for new ways to improve performance. However, in recent years, as the world economy suffered through one of the worst recessions in history, many companies turned in droves to Lean and other variations of continuous improvement programs to rescue their sagging businesses. But, did they really learn during this process?

Despite the enormous popularity of Lean, the track record for successful implementation of the methodology is spotty at best. Some recent studies say that failure rates for Lean programs range between 50 percent and 95 percent. To analyze this level of performance from a Lean, problem-solving perspective, continuous improvement experts should be asking: Why do so many companies fail to achieve Lean success?

While the causes are numerous and extensive, I will focus on one of the most significant reasons: failure to understand the theories and concepts of Lean and their relationship to the entire business.