Lean Management Examples from a Variety of Businesses
The following case studies of lean management principles in action show you how a variety of real businesses solved real business problems under diverse conditions.
We’ve arranged the stories in 16 categories to help you find the examples you need. There is some overlap. For instance, a “Lean Manufacturing” case study may also appear with “Privately Held Companies.”
- Lean Manufacturing
- Logistics, Supply Chain, and Warehousing
- Lean Material Handling
- Job Shops (Low-volume, High-mix Manufacturing); Tool and Die
- Lean in Government
- Lean Healthcare
- Lean Accounting
- Lean Construction
- Lean in Office and Service Processes
- Lean in Education
- Problem Solving
- Pull Systems
- Culture Change
- People Development
- Privately Held Companies
- Maintenance
Many of the executives who took part in these transformations are interviewed in LEI’s Senior Executive Series on Lean Leadership. After reading the case studies, be sure to get their personal perspectives on leading change. (Feel free to link to this page, but please respect the copyrights of LEI and journalists by not copying the articles.)
Are you doing something new or notable in the practice of lean management? Let us share what you learned with the lean community. For more information, contact LEI’s Director of Communications Chet Marchwinski at cmarchwinski at lean dot org
Lean Manufacturing
Learn how Thrustmaster of Texas successfully adopted lean thinking and practices to make sustainable improvements in a short period of time, and how other manufacturers of highly engineered, low-volume products can follow their lead using the Lean Transformation Framework.
Lean + Circular Principals = a New True North for Manufacturer
SunPower’s lean journey resembled most others until it defined a new mission, a new True North by combining lean principals with those of the “circular economy” to launch what it is calling a CLean Transformation.
Sustain Your Lean Business System with a “Golden Triangle”
After a medical device maker took a hit to margins to fight off global competition, it rebuilt them by lifting its lean operating system to a higher level and keeping it there with a “golden triangle” of sustainability.
Followup Story:
Manufacturing Balancing Act: Pull Versus ERP
In this follow-up to “Sustain Your Lean Business System with a ‘Golden Triangle,’” a case study about Phase 2 Medical Manufacturing, the company needs warehouse space to keep pace with sales growth spurred by the lean transformation. Instead, it expands a pull system by connecting the plan-for-every-part database that underpins one-piece flow production with ERP, typically associated with big batch production.
Cultivating a Lean Problem-Solving Culture at O.C. Tanner
If you are in the “appreciation business”, you have to live it in your own workplace. For O.C. Tanner that meant a lean transformation had to show the company appreciated and wanted people’s problem-solving ideas. Here’s a report on that effort, including what worked and what didn’t.
Lean Partnership with Dealer Network Helps Vermeer Reduce End-to-End Inventory on Top Sellers
A lean transformation had taken heavy-equipment manufacturer Vermeer away from batch manufacturing, but batch ordering by dealers was delaying how quickly they got equipment like brush chippers. Learn how it began converting its domestic industrial-line distribution network to lean replenishment, improving service to end customers and improving cash flow for Vermeer and its dealers.
Herman Miller’s Experiment in Excellence
At Herman Miller, the lean management effort helps it build problem solvers as well as world-class office furniture. And as this case study shows, lean practices also helped it weather a brutal recession.
Build Your “House” of Production on a Stable Foundation
Rigorous problem solving creates basic stability in a machining intensive facility.
A Journey to Value Streams: Reorganizing Into Five Groups Drives Lean Improvements and Customer Responsiveness
An approach to creating a value-stream culture centered on autonomy, entrepreneurialism, and lean principles.
Change in Implementation Approach Opens the Door at EMCO to Greater Gains in Less Time
A relatively quick, intensive project accelerates the rate of improvement and creates a showcase facility for spreading lean concepts.
Creating the Course and Tools for a Lean Accounting System
A lean accounting implementation fills the frustrating disconnect between shop-floor improvements and financial statements.
For Athletic Shoe Company, the Soul of Lean Management Is Problem Solving
After taking a lean tools approach to change, management re-organized the transformation around problem solving and process improvement to create a culture that engaged people while boosting performance.
Knife Company Hones Competitiveness by Bucking the Status Quo
An iconic family-owned company turns to lean manufacturing to reduce costs by at least 30% to keep its U.S. operations open.
Lean Transformation Lives and Dies with Tools and Dies
After a failed first try at just-in-time production, a company transforms tool maintenance, design, and fabrication to create a solid foundation for a second attempt.
Seasoned Lean Effort Avoids “Flavor-of-the-Month” Pitfall
A look at how one company’s approach to what new tools it introduced, in what order, and how it prevented each new technique from being viewed as a “flavor of the month” fad.
Two years into a lean transformation, the low-hanging fruit has been plucked and progress has started to slow. Read how a Thomas & Betts plant recharged the transformation and reached higher levels of performance by using value-stream managers to span functional walls.
Using Plan-Do-Check-Act as a Strategy and Tactic for Helping Suppliers Improve
At Medtronic’s Neuromodulation business unit, the plan-do-check-act cycle is used on a strategic level to guide overall strategy for selecting and developing key suppliers as well as on a tactical level for guiding lean transformations at supplier facilities.
Logistics, Supply Chain, and WarehousingHow a Retailer’s Distribution Center Exemplifies the Lean Precept “Respect for People,” and Reaps the Benefits
To make sure training engaged and resonated with people after previous attempts at a lean transformation faltered, LifeWay matched lean management tools and principles to its Bible-based culture and language.
Manufacturing Balancing Act: Pull Versus ERP
In this follow-up to “Sustain Your Lean Business System with a ‘Golden Triangle,’” a case study about Phase 2 Medical Manufacturing, the company needs warehouse space to keep pace with sales growth spurred by the lean transformation. Instead, it expands a pull system by connecting the plan-for-every-part database that underpins one-piece flow production with ERP, typically associated with big batch production.
Lean management case study series: Lean in Distribution: Go to Where the Action Is!
Starting with daily management walkabouts and standard work, this distributor had laid the groundwork for steady gains for years to come, just two years after its first kaizen workshop.
Putting Lean Principles in the Warehouse
Executives at Menlo Worldwide Logistics saw an opportunity to leapfrog the competition by embracing lean in its outsourced warehousing and receiving operations.
Lean Thinking Therapy Spreads Beyond the Shop
A company expands the lean transformation from the shop floor to international distribution, domestic shipping, and product development.
Sell One, Buy One, Make One: Transforming from Conventional to Lean Distribution
Large inventories to cover fluctuations in demand once characterized Toyota’s service parts distribution system — but no more. Here’s how one DC made the switch.
Using Plan-Do-Check-Act as a Strategy and Tactic for Helping Suppliers Improve
At Medtronic’s Neuromodulation business unit, the plan-do-check-act cycle is used on a strategic level to guide overall strategy for selecting and developing key suppliers as well as on a tactical level for guiding lean transformations at supplier facilities.
Following Four Steps to a Lean Material-Handling System Leads to a Leap in Performance
Creating the critical Plan for Every Part was one step in a methodical four-step implementation process to replace a traditional material-handling system.
Low-volume, High-mix Manufacturing; Tool and Die
Learn how Thrustmaster of Texas successfully adopted lean thinking and practices to make sustainable improvements in a short period of time, and how other manufacturers of highly engineered, low-volume products can follow their lead using the Lean Transformation Framework.
The Backbone of Lean in the Back Shops
Sikorsky managers apply the lean concept of “every part, every interval” (EPEI) to level the mix in demand and create flow through a key manufacturing cell.
Landscape Forms Cultivates Lean to Fuel Growth Goals
With single-item orders 80% of the time, a low-volume, high-mix manufacturer decided single-piece flow cells were the best way decided the best way to add new products without having to constantly reconfigure production.
Lean Transformation Lives and Dies with Tools and Dies
After a failed first try at just-in-time production, a company transforms tool maintenance, design, and fabrication to create a solid foundation for a second attempt.
Government
Canada Post Puts Its Stamp on a Lean Transformation
The “inventory” of mail already is paid for, so moving it faster doesn’t improve cash flow as in lean manufacturing. But Canada Post discovered that traditional batch-and-queue postal operations could benefit from lean principles.
Lean Thinking in Government: The State of Iowa
This story examines a kaizen event at a veterans home and more broadly at the lean effort in Iowa government.
Lean Thinking Helps City of Chula Vista with Budget Crunch
Goodrich Aerostructures’ Chula Vista plant introduces city government to lean thinking and practices so in order to maintain municipal services without resorting to further cuts in the workforce.
Using Lean Thinking to Reinvent City Government
Grand Rapids, MI, turns to lean principles to consolidate operations, eliminate wasted time and effort, and streamline to improve productivity while providing the quality of service that residents want.
Healthcare
The Cleveland Clinic reinvents its continuous improvement program to instill a problem-solving mindset and the skillset to solve everyday problems among the clinic’s thousands of caregivers.
Followup Story:
View from the Hospital Floor: How to Build a Culture of Improvement One Unit at a Time
In order to do more and improve faster, the Cleveland Clinic is rolling out a methodology for building a “culture of improvement” across the 48,000-employee hospital system as this followup to the above story shows. Here’s how it works according to the people making the changes.
Dentist Drills Down to the Root Causes of Office Waste
Dentistry is a job shop that Dr. Sami Bahri is out to improve fundamentally for the benefit of patients through the application of lean principles.
Lean improvement projects at Akron Children’s Hospital have saved millions of dollars, increased utilization of expensive assets, and reduced wait times for patients and their families.
Lean Design and Construction Project an Extension of Lean Commitment at Akron Children’s Hospital
Input from nurses, doctors, therapists, technicians, and patient parents heavily influenced design decisions..
“Pulling” Lean Through a Hospital
A thoughtful rollout of lean principles in the ER and eye-opening results created a “pull” for lean from other departments.
Best in Healthcare Getting Better with Lean
Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, stresses to doctors that the lean effort is aimed not at changing the moment of care, the touch moment between doctor and patient, but the 95% of the time when the patient is not in the doctor’s office
Fighting Cancer with Linear Accelerators and Accelerated Processes
Cross-functional team design and implement a lean process to dramatically increase the number of patients with brain and bone metastases receiving consultation, simulation, and first treatment on the same day without workarounds or expediting.
Massachusetts General Looks to Lean
A proton therapy treatment center, for many adults and children the best hope of beating cancer, applies lean principles to increase capacity.
Physicians and staff have tirelessly reengineer processes and patient flow to eliminate as much waiting and waste as possible.
At a hospital in Pittsburgh, the emerging vision for the “hospital of the future” is described as giving the right patient, the right care, at the right time, in the right way, all the time.
Accounting
Creating the Course and Tools for a Lean Accounting System
A lean accounting implementation fills the frustrating disconnect between shop-floor improvements and the financial statement.
Landscape Forms Cultivates Lean to Fuel Growth Goals
With single-item orders 80% of the time, a low-volume, high-mix manufacturer decided single-piece flow cells were the best way decided the best way to add new products without having to constantly reconfigure production.
Knife Company Hones Competitiveness by Bucking the Status Quo
An iconic family-owned company turns to lean manufacturing to reduce costs by at least 30% to keep its U.S. operations open.
Office and Service Processes
Canada Post Puts Its Stamp on a Lean Transformation
The “inventory” of mail already is paid for, so moving it faster doesn’t improve cash flow as in lean manufacturing. But Canada Post discovered that traditional batch-and-queue postal operations could benefit from lean principles.
At an Atlanta landscaping company, lean practices are making inroads into a service industry in unusual yet fundamental ways.
LSG Sky Chefs Caters to New Market Realities
Business at airline caterer LSG Sky Chefs dropped 30% when airlines cut flights after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Sky Chefs responded with a rapid launch of a lean initiative.
leveraging Lean to Get the Oil Out
Aera Energy LLC, a California oil and gas company, relies on lean principles to improve key processes, including drilling new wells, repairing existing ones, and maximizing the number of barrels of crude pumped each day.
Education
Columbus Public Schools Use Process Thinking to Improve Academic Achievement.
Columbus, OH, public schools, experiment with lean tools and process thinking to remove wasteful activities that don’t help them help students learn.
Lean Inroads into Alabama Academia
How the University of Alabama in Huntsville integrated lean concepts throughout its industrial engineering curriculum.
Linking Lean Thinking to the Classroom
Value-stream mapping is one of many activities included in the Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies (Ford PAS), an academic program designed to link high-school classroom learning to the skills needed in college and business.
Problem Solving
Build Your “House” of Production on a Stable Foundation
Rigorous problem solving creates basic stability in a machining intensive facility.
For Athletic Shoe Company, the Soul of Lean Management Is Problem Solving
After talking a lean tools approach to change, management re-organized the transformation around problem solving and process improvement to create a culture that engaged people while boosting performance.
Pull Systems
Manufacturing Balancing Act: Pull Versus ERP
In this follow-up to “Sustain Your Lean Business System with a ‘Golden Triangle,’” a case study about Phase 2 Medical Manufacturing, the company needs warehouse space to keep pace with sales growth spurred by the lean transformation. Instead, it expands a pull system by connecting the plan-for-every-part database that underpins one-piece flow production with ERP, typically associated with big batch production.
Toothbrush Plant Reverses Decay in Competitiveness
The rapid introduction of a lean system, beginning with just-in-time production and pull, helps a highly automated Midwest plant fight off overseas competition by reducing lead times and inventory while augmenting the plant’s advantage in service.
Culture Change
“Pulling” Lean Through a Hospital
A thoughtful rollout of lean principles in the ER and eye-opening results created a “pull” for lean from other departments.
An approach to creating a value-stream culture centered on autonomy, entrepreneurialism, and lean principles.
Cultivating a Lean Problem-Solving Culture at O.C. Tanner
If you are in the “appreciation business”, you have to live it in your own workplace. For O.C. Tanner that meant a lean transformation had to show the company appreciated and wanted people’s problem-solving ideas. Here’s a report on that effort, including what worked and what didn’t.
People Development
Making Lean Leaders — Ariens internship program develops lean and leadership skills
Besides making snow-blowers, mowers, and string trimmers, Ariens Co., of Brillion, WI, makes lean leaders.
Privately Held Companies
Lean management case study series: Lean in Distribution: Go to Where the Action Is!
Starting with daily management walkabouts and standard work, this 84-year-old, family-owned distributor laid the groundwork for steady gains for years to come, just two years after its first kaizen workshop.
Sustain Your Lean Business System with a “Golden Triangle”
After a medical device maker took a hit to margins to fight off global competition, it rebuilt them by lifting its lean operating system to a higher level and keeping it there with a “golden triangle” of sustainability. You’ll recognize two elements of the triangle right away: visual control and standardized work. The third, accountability management or a kamishibai system, is probably less well known but just as critical.
Manufacturing Balancing Act: Pull Versus ERP
In this follow-up to “Sustain Your Lean Business System with a ‘Golden Triangle,’” a case study about Phase 2 Medical Manufacturing, the company needs warehouse space to keep pace with sales growth spurred by the lean transformation. Instead, it expands a pull system by connecting the plan-for-every-part database that underpins one-piece flow production with ERP, typically associated with big batch production.
Knife Company Hones Competitiveness by Bucking the Status Quo
An iconic family-owned company turns to lean manufacturing to reduce costs by at least 30% to keep its U.S. operations open.
At an Atlanta landscaping company, lean practices are making inroads into a service industry in unusual yet fundamental ways.
Cultivating a Lean Problem-Solving Culture at O.C. Tanner
If you are in the “appreciation business”, you have to live it in your own workplace. For O.C. Tanner that meant a lean transformation had to show the company appreciated and wanted people’s problem-solving ideas. Here’s a report on that effort, including what worked and what didn’t.
Lean Transformation Lives and Dies with Tools and Dies
After a failed first try at just-in-time production, a company transforms tool maintenance, design, and fabrication to create a solid foundation for a second attempt.
Maintenance
Lean Thinking in Aircraft Repair and Maintenance Takes Wing at FedEx Express
A major check that used to take 32,715 man-hours was cut to 21,535 hours in six months. That translated into a $2 million savings, which dovetailed with the company’s emphasis on reducing costs during the recession.
Lean Transformation Lives and Dies with Tools and Dies
After a failed first try at just-in-time production, a company transforms tool maintenance, design, and fabrication to create a solid foundation for a second attempt.
Construction
Lean Design and Construction Project an Extension of Lean Commitment at Akron Children’s Hospital
Input from nurses, doctors, therapists, technicians, and patient parents heavily influenced design decisions—from incorporating emergency room hallways that protect the privacy of abused children to the number of electrical outlets in each neonatal intensive care room.
Manufacturing Balancing Act: Pull Versus ERP
In this follow-up to “Sustain Your Lean Business System with a ‘Golden Triangle,’” a case study about Phase 2 Medical Manufacturing, the company needs warehouse space to keep pace with sales growth spurred by the lean transformation. Instead, it expands a pull system by connecting the plan-for-every-part database that underpins one-piece flow production with ERP, typically associated with big batch production.
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