The web’s largest Lean glossary. A lexicon of over 1,500 terms used in industrial engineering, lean thinking, operations management, quality management, and business statistics.

Two-dimensional bar code based on a flat set of rows of encrypted data in the form of bars and spaces, normally in a rectangular or square pattern.

The three drivers of customer satisfaction are Quality, Cost, and Delivery.

The three elements of JIT are 1) takt time, 2) flow production, and 3) the downstream pull system.

The three principles are 1) shop floor (gemba), 2) the actual product (gembutsu), and 3) the facts (genjitsu). The key to successful kaizen is to going to the shop floor, working with the actual product and getting the facts.

Three-dimensional bar code based on a physically embossed or stamped set of encrypted data interpreted by variations in height rather than contrast between spaces and bars (as used in 2D bar codes). Often used in environments where labels can not be easily attached to items.

Production Preparation Process. Rapidly designing production processes and equipment to ensure capability, built-in quality, productivity, and Takt-Flow-Pull. The Production Preparation Process minimizes resources needed such as capital, tooling, space, inventory, and time.

Working conditions or jobs that are dirty, dangerous, or difficult.

A rule that specifies the sources of quality problems as due to 40% from product design, 30% from manufacturing and 30% from vendors.

A simple but effective method of analyzing and solving problems by asking ‘why?’ five times (or as many times as needed to find the root cause.

Man, Machine, Material, Method, and Measure. Understand these factors and the establishment of standards are key steps in strengthening the production processes.

A set of workplace organization rules designed to increase efficiency and help enable lean manufacturing, as defined by: Sort- separate and categorize needed and unneeded materials and tools; Set in Order- arrange tools and other items for ease of use; Shine (or scrub)- maintain high level of cleanliness; Standardize- create a systematic plan to perform the first three steps; Sustain- devise methods to turn performing the steps on an ongoing basis into a habit. Derived from the Japanese words seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke.

See Six Sigma.

Data gathering and analysis tools used for kaizen activities originally by QC Circles. They are 1) check sheets, 2) cause and effect diagrams, 3) Pareto diagrams, 4) histograms, 5) graphs, 6) scatter diagrams, and 7) broken line graphs.

There are 7 types of waste that describe all wasteful activity in a production environment. Elimination of the 7 wastes leads to improved profits. The 7 wastes are: Overproduction, Transportation, Motion, Waiting, Processing, Inventory, and Defects.

Rule based on Pareto’s Law stating that 80% of an end result (quality problems, inventory valuation, distribution of wealth) comes from a source of 20% (items, number of people, etc.).