ABSTRACT

An important element of establishing Lean on the plant floor is to respect everyone’s ideas. To illustrate this, I’d like to tell a story about grocery stores in the late 1800s and early 1900s. At that time in America, a grocery store consisted of a counter with shelves behind it, where the merchandise was stacked to the ceiling. The customer would tell the clerk behind the counter what he wanted, and the clerk would climb up the ladder and retrieve the items from the shelves. The clerk would then total the charges for the items and bag the merchandise. The customer didn’t even touch the merchandise until he or she got home and removed it from the bag.