Unhide the problems – A key step in lean success

Why problem continue day after day and year after year. Most of the organizations suffer with the same disease for years and they can not find the answer to that. For an example most of the organization have difficulties in getting manufacturing figures online, yet they have very expensive and state of the art systems in place. Some people do not understand why they take so long to manufacturer the same thing some others will manufacture in half the time. Yet when you study their processes they seem to be doing ok. So what the problem is?

Actual problem most of the organizations face is the inability to surface their problems. Most of the problems are surfaced when there is a burning issue and then the firefighting will solve the problem temporarily and people will forget the cause to the problem. Unfortunately most of the times people do not even try to identify and surface the problems.

Lean manufacturing is always removing wastes from the system. To remove the problems from the system they need to be surfaced. This is facilitated in lean manufacturing by reducing the work in progress, having integrated systems and maximum transparency.


There are many problems which will prevent surfacing of the problems. Organization culture plays a key role here. In a lean organization people must see problems as possibilities to improvements. Lean manufacturers will not use the problems to point fingers at each other. They will discuss the problems openly and will collectively solve it.

So surface the problems unhide them and collectively solve them. Problems are not things to be hidden, they are opportunities to improve. This is lean culture.