About A Lean Journey

Welcome to "A Lean Journey" a blog dedicated to the Quest for True North. It is not about the destination but the direction or path you take toward this idealistic place. Lean is not something you check off your "To Do List". It is about the constant, persistent, even relentless pursuit of improving your current situation. And this improvement brings you to the next current state and so on.

In my opinion leaning out the waste is not necessarily the difficult part of this process but rather the identification of the wastes. Waste is all around us yet many can not recognize it. I like to say that "activity does not equal productivity". The real challenge is to break status quo, get out of your comfort zone, and learn to "see". This means observing the actual condition at the actual place at the actual time.

Lean also commonly refered as TPS (from it's originators) is the "Thinking People System". It is about learning to see waste and solve problems through the development of people. This is a frequently missed and even understated purpose in lean. Lean is truly about people because tools don't solve problems, people solve problems.

I hope that my experience in the pursuit of True North can be educational and help others along the way. This also serves a source of reflection along my own journey which is so important. Without reflection there can be no improvement.