ABSTRACT
Lean was born in the automobile industry; Toyota is the founder of Lean and still considered a global benchmark. However, “Lean” was not coined by Toyota, but by John Krafcik, a student at MIT. He was doing research for Jim Womack, founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute, who ultimately wrote a book together with Jones and Roos entitled The Machine That Changed the World (1991). A number of industries have since adopted the Lean mentality, among other reasons, because processes and information streams are commonplace. Lean has taken root in the nancial sector and is currently being adopted in many others, including health care.
