What is Lean Ninja?

Lean Ninja is my effort to demonstrate the applicability of the philosophies and concepts behind lean manufacturing to everyday Life.

I work as an Industrial Engineer, with particular interests in lean manufacturing.  In my limited time in the field, I have witnessed several companies (including my own) begin to be crushed by foreign competition. They are now grasping at lean concepts attempting to inject them as tools into a culture which is relatively unsupportive of lean principles.  I will spare you the technical details; however one critical lesson needs to be taken here:

One of the biggest reasons companies fail in becoming truly lean is because they do not think truly lean.

As a whole, they do not have a lean culture.  Lean tools cannot be thrust upon a work environment and have any form success among employees who do not truly embrace it at the personal level.

How do you embrace it?  You apply it your Life.

Lean is a way of Life. 

All the engineers I know who truly grasp lean manufacturing have applied it to their Life in various ways (some more than others, no doubt).

Likewise from what I have witnessed in discussion, non-engineers who live a lean lifestyle intuitively understand lean manufacturing concepts even better than some actual engineers I know.

Applying lean principles and developing a congruent mindset has worked wonders in my Life.  That being said, my purpose in "Lean Ninja" is to not only explain the fundamentals of lean manufacturing from a business standpoint, but also how to embrace and apply lean to improve your Life.

Lean is a discipline, a mindset, a skill set and a way of Life.  It can be used to improve your Life just as easily as it can be used to improve a business or any process.

Note:  Lean Ninja is still very much under construction.  Be sure to check back often as I add new articles.

Lee Ridenour