"Lean Consumption" — Using technology to make life easier for consumers
Boston.com / Business / Technology
Dr. James Womack and Dr. Daniel Jones have a new book coming out this fall. A preview of that book is presented in the current Harvard Business Review and is summarized in this article.
The Lean Enterprise Institute has made some PDF reprints available here for the lean community.
Lean Consumption (PDF Download)
Many of the concepts in the article relate to applying lean to customer service and service industries (reducing NVA time, root cause problem solving etc.). There's an interesting manufacturing example about how Nike produces its custom shoes and backpacks in San Francisco. Nike decided it was cheaper from an overall standpoint to have the fast response of shipping from high-labor-cost San Francisco rather than trying to ship them from Asia. This certainly makes sense when you're building a custom product and labor costs are a relatively small proportion of your total cost (this is true in many industries).
This is a great article. The principles identified are reminisent of Tom Peters’ suggestions in the 80s for ‘delighting’ our customers. Some things don’t change.
This is a great article. The principles identified are reminisent of Tom Peters’ suggestions in the 80s for ‘delighting’ our customers. Some things don’t change.
[…] · 1 comment Here is a link to an earlier post on the conference and another link about “Lean Consumption” (including a link to a recent HBR […]