In our book The Machine That Changed the World, we explained how companies can dramatically improve their performance by embracing the “lean production” approach pioneered by Toyota. By Eliminating unnecessary steps, aligning all steps in an activity in a continuous flow, recombining labor into cross-functional teams dedicated to that activity, and continually striving for improvement, companies can develop, produce, and distribute products with half or less of the human effort, space, tools, time, and overall expense. They can also become vastly more flexible and responsive to customer desires.
A version of this article appeared in the March–April 1994 issue of Harvard Business Review.
