ABSTRACT
The term Lean from the manufacturing viewpoint denotes identification and elimination of wastes in involved processes (Womack et al. 1990). Liker and Wu (2000) defined ‘Lean’ as ‘a philosophy of manufacturing that is based on developing the highest-quality products with lowest cost and delivered on time’. A Lean production system generates wider product variants, at low cost, with higher productivity levels and delivery speed at optimum quality. Lean production techniques facilitate improvements in efficiency, response speed and production flexibility, which are realised by industrial enterprises such as Toyota.
