Who Coined Lean Production? John Krafcik and the 1988 Article

John Krafcik coined “lean production” in 1988, describing practices studied by MIT's International Motor Vehicle Program. The name was new; the practices had developed earlier at Toyota. The Lean Enterprise Institute's definition and history makes that distinction clear.

I first wrote this reflection in September 2013, on the article's 25th anniversary. Revisiting it shows why the origin of Lean matters: the argument concerns a management system, not simply a set of tools.

Where the Term “Lean Production” Came From

If you are looking for the original source, start with Krafcik's “Triumph of the Lean Production System.” Below, I connect its findings with my own experience at a GM engine plant.

People often ask me where the term “Lean” comes from. It's not an acronym, so it shouldn't be spelled “LEAN” (but it often is). Lean is not a synonym for “lacking or deficient” in resources, as some dictionaries will tell you or as it gets used in news headlines about “surviving the lean economy.”

The 1988 Article That Coined “Lean Production”

Krafcik's article, “Triumph of the Lean Production System,” appeared in the Fall 1988 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review. The Lean Enterprise Institute's anniversary account describes how the MIT research team arrived at the term.

In the 1980s, Krafcik worked with Jim Womack in MIT's International Motor Vehicle Program. That research provided the context for the article discussed here.

The anniversary prompted me to return to an article I had first read as an MIT student in 1998. These are my reflections from that rereading.

Rediscovering the Original Article

The article was assigned as reading when I was a student at MIT in 1998, and I returned to it in 2013. Click the image to open the article.

The article is now available from the Lean Enterprise Institute (free PDF).

Why does this article still matter? Not because it coined a term, but because it described Lean as a management system rather than a collection of techniques. Krafcik focused on leadership behavior, decision-making, and culture–arguments that remain just as relevant today as organizations struggle with superficial or tool-centric implementations of Lean.

Lean vs. Buffered Production Systems

Krafcik wrote about the origin of the term “lean” in contrast to what might be called the traditional approach – a “buffered” production system.

When I started my career at a GM engine plant in 1995, the plant certainly followed the “buffered” approach. The plant's management philosophy attempted to keep, for example, the engine block machining line running at all costs by storing large (and virtually unlimited) buffers of parts in many locations.

If one machine were down, they would run all of the other machines, building a “buffer” of parts that would be used later. These “buffers” often contained defective parts, which caused problems down the line. It was a never-ending game of production whack-a-mole, constantly offloading and loading buffered parts to and from the line. Ironically, our highly buffered line had exactly one half the productivity of our benchmark Toyota plant. Krafcik said this strategy was “a safe bet for a steady, if unexceptional return.”

Krafcik went on to describe a “lean” plant, which had inventory levels that were “kept at an absolute minimum” so that quality problems and downtime occurrences could be “quickly detected and solved.” He said this strategy presented higher risks but had greater potential gains. Many of the “risks,” such as downtime or poor quality, could be “neutralized given an experienced, well-trained workforce, responsive suppliers, and good product designs.”

Today's lean thinkers would recognize the roles of methods like mistake-proofing and Total Productive Maintenance, as well as more collaborative relationships among factories, suppliers, and manufacturing and product development.

In an endnote, Krafcik cites earlier work that used the terms “robust” and “fragile” instead of “buffered” and “lean.” For all of the handwringing that takes place about the negative connotations of the word “lean,” we can count our blessings that the term “fragile” wasn't used. There would be no “Fragile Enterprise Institute,” I'm sure. No bestselling book called The Fragile Startup, either.

Lean as a Coherent, Integrated Management Policy

Some people criticize the “early days” of the Lean movement as focusing too much on tools or for not fully understanding the implications of Toyota's management system. I think people who review this article (or even re-read The Machine That Changed The World) would appreciate how much attention Krafcik paid to Toyota's “production management policies,” as he called them. He didn't write about tools like 5S, kanban systems, or heijunka boxes. He wrote primarily about management, leadership, and culture.

Krafcik's article builds on two years he spent working as an engineer at NUMMI, the GM-Toyota joint venture plant that started operations in 1984. Krafcik experienced the noticeably different management environment of NUMMI, much as I did in 1996 when the GM plant that employed me brought in a new plant manager who was transformed by his experience as an early NUMMI employee.

What were some of these philosophies and management practices? They included:

1) Lean is respect for humanity and continuous improvement

In a Lean environment, Krafcik wrote, “Management did not think of workers as replaceable cogs in a great production machine… and gave them the responsibility to continuously improve… Scientific management techniques were not thrown away; they were just performed by different, more appropriate employees” who had a “true grass-roots involved with all aspects of the operation.”

2) Lean is an integrated management and operational system

Krafcik explains, “This system encourages the full development and integration of all existing technology, policies, and human resources in a way that traditional… policies seem to miss.”

3) Lean is about culture change

Krafcik explains how one automotive company that made great improvements on both quality and cost “implemented more and more lean production management policies in its plants, in effect incrementally altering its own corporate culture to better fit the lean model.”

What the Study Found About Management and Productivity

Krafcik described a “management index” that predicted a plant's productivity far better than its level of automation or national location. The four components of the index that predicted success were:

1. Levels of teamwork throughout the plant
2. “Visual control,” as “a proxy for worker span of control” (a Lean plant has more cross-training than a traditional plant)
3. Unscheduled absentee-ism rates, “an indicator of worker participation and management's expectations”
4. The amount of space dedicated to repairs, illustrating management's expectations about quality being built in (traditional plants planning and expecting to do a large number of repairs as part of normal daily operations).

Krafcik seemed optimistic that the “lean production management policies” could be adopted in the U.S., as “perhaps the most important competitive weapon in the U.S. industry's arsenal [is] the ability to accept and digest new ideas rapidly,” whereas “Most European plants are saddled with… the not-invented-here syndrome.” Some say healthcare is saddled with that very problem today.

My reading is that the article gives us reason to examine management practices alongside production methods. For a related explanation, see respect for people in Lean. Reducing inventory without developing the ability to identify and solve problems misses an important part of the argument.

My Assessment at the 25th Anniversary

Writing in 2013, 25 years after the article, I asked: Has “lean production” triumphed in the auto industry? At the plant level, I would say yes, this seems clear, as GM, Ford, and Chrysler have made great strides in changing their factories' cultures. But what about other manufacturing industries or, more importantly, healthcare?

Why This Still Matters for Lean Leaders Today

I hope you'll check out the article. I think it's really important for the Lean community to understand the roots of the concepts and principles, not just the word “Lean.” As much as people are discovering the importance of culture and management systems, not just tools, the wisdom of a truly Lean approach has always been out there in articles like Krafcik's.

When you review your own Lean efforts, ask what changed in how leaders respond to problems and how employees participate in improvement. This Toyota tour-guide example makes that question concrete.

Bring Lean thinking to healthcare

In Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement, I explain how hospitals use Lean to reduce delays and errors and to engage the people who do the work. It is a Shingo Publication Award recipient, now in its third edition.

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