Lean Culture

A friend recently told me about the Lean Culture in the manufacturing field. I watched a video called Lean Manufacturing - Lean is Simple by FastCap and it gave a good explanation of the principles. There are eight wastes that are examined in the culture. I began to look at these eight wastes and wondered how it could be applied to field of education.

Here are the 8 wastes that we will look at:

1. Overproduction

2. Transportation

3. Excess Inventory

4. Defects

5. Over-process

6. Wasted motion

7. Customers waiting time

8. Unused employee potential

Finding the waste component can really make a difference in any field if you look hard enough. Making changes can impact the final goal.

In a classroom, students can help look for wastes and probably would enjoy pointing them out.

Students might also have a different perspective than a teacher amd be able to point out things that a teacher might not see.

In the following posts, I hope to examine each of these wastes and try to look for ways that schools and teachers have too much waste. As a taxpayer, I would be interested in looking at ways to reduce waste and get more bang for my money.

Feel free to jump in and share ways you see waste in your school community. We might have a common issue that has been overlooked.

Photo by Tom Morel on Unsplash