I have to comment on learning from “low-tech” industries. Technology means ‘a method or tool for doing something” and “studying and understanding the method.” In other words, know-how. Too often the press, government officials, business experts, etc., want to apply “high-tech” to the information technology, biological or electronics industries.

Lean is a technology itself, thus, any company that understands how to use it, no matter what they produce, it high-tech. In manufacturing, computer-numerical-control machining centers, robotic systems, transfer and progressive die stamping operations, continuous casting steel systems and so on are as advanced technologically as wireless communication systems. When IT people see themselves as part of a production system, and actually visit the places where work is done (Toyota’s assembly line and dealerships, for example), the software they produce will be much better aligned with the company’s needs and they will be better able to distinguish between unnecessary features and critical requirements. The business customer can’t always do that. That’s why kaizens or other improvement events ask for “outside eyes” to participate. If a company is implementing lean in any serious way, the improvement team leaders ought to be delighted to have somebody from IT get in on a project. Then learning becomes person-to-person, relationships are formed, and some of the constraints imposed by bureaucratic development processes can start to be attacked.

It’s good to hear the idea of lean emerge in the software area. The move to implement lean accounting is gathering amazing momentum. Maybe software will be next.