A compelling article from Industry Week that might change the way you think about lean manufacturing. Their claim: Lean needs to be about people first, tools later. “If we are serious about global competitiveness and a sustained ability to retain American jobs in American factories, it is imperative we recognize one irrefutable fact: the technical issues associated with factory performance improvement are inseparable from people issues.”

The issue appears to be that our mindset concerning lean is a little off. When we’re told to “think lean” we start wondering how we can improve the tools, but that’s missing the point. What we need to be doing is considering the culture of a business, and that begins and ends with people.

Catch the full article HERE.