History of Lean Manufacturing

At the end of 1890, Frederick W Taylor became the first to study work management scientifically and distribute the results. His work led to the formalization of time and motion studies and the setting of common standards.

Frank Gilbreth then added the concept of breaking work down into elementary time blocks. It was around this time that the first notions of eliminating waste and studying movement began to emerge.

In 1910, Henry Ford invented the assembly line for his standardized Ford Model T.

Alfred P. Sloan improved on Ford’s system when he introduced the concept of assembly line diversity at GM.

After the Second World War, Taiichi Ohno and Shingeo Shingo created the “Just In Time”, “Waste Reduction” and “Pull System” concepts for Toyota, which, together with other flow management techniques, resulted in the Toyota Production System (TPS).

The TPS has been evolved and improved ever since. In 1990, James Womack summarized these concepts to create Lean Manufacturing at a time when Japanese expertise was spreading to the West and the success achieved by companies applying these principles and techniques became undeniable.