ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews a brief history of business process improvement, culminating in Lean and discusses the foundational principles of a lasting transformation of culture and performance. It explores the concepts of value and waste in relation to Lean problem solving tools, concepts, and terminology. In 1996, Lean Thinking was published, emphasizing integration of improvement across value streams, unleashing the current age of integration of improvement methods across all functions of the business, and in all industries, including health care, insurance, banking, and nonprofits. Lean transformation requires the input, support, and active participation of everyone in the organization. The evolution of a Lean culture often begins with the adoption of continuous improvement tools, followed by the formation of behavior-driven systems, guided by shared values and principles. Lean offers a wide variety of problem-solving tools which provide structure and consistency to identify and quantify non-value-added tasks, analyze problems, discover root causes, develop countermeasures, implement improvements, and measure results.
