Lean Roadmap - Sense out of Alphabet Soup

One of the questions that we are most frequently asked is: "How do we possibly make sense out of all the alphabet soup of programs and techniques for continuous improvement - Lean, TQM, JIT, Six-Sigma, TPM, Kaizen, SPC, BPR?"

Much of the diversity of program names and acronyms arises from the importation of unfamiliar Japanese concepts. However, beyond that factor, many programs are promoted and supported by individuals or firms with an economic interest in their adoption. On some occasions, collections of activities are given names and acronyms for marketing purposes - either internally or externally.

As a result, claims are made that a given program is the overarching "mother-of-all-continuous improvement programs". We have certainly seen this with Six Sigma, BPR (Business Process Re-engineering), and TQM. We believe that a new synthesis of programs would be useful to combine the best features under one initiative.

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