The history of what we call lean manufacturing today has followed a fairly straightforward path. The discipline has evolved from its discrete manufacturing roots into a philosophy embraced by process industries as well, and has expanded in scope from a shop floor phenomenon to a pan-operational practice that can tidy up a budgeting department as well as it can tidy up a factory work cell.
When gun-shy credit markets this fall made working capital hard to come by for many manufacturers, the concept of saving capital by creating only as much inventory as was truly necessary — one of lean's main tenets — must have appeared particularly appealing to manufacturers.
But lean's popularity doesn't depend on lean economic times. In fact, with its simple cornerstone of "reduce waste," lean is the "world peace" of the business world: Everyone can agree they want it, but not everyone agrees on how to get it.
Lean is not a business practice rife with controversy, but it is not entirely free of it, either. The main area of contention has been technology's place in the application of lean practices, and how it can be integrated to maximum effect. Across the decades, proponents have clashed over technology's role, and the tug of war between lean purists and technology apologists has left the rope in tatters.