Post-Toyota Lean: A Conversation with Doc Hall

I've received a number of private messages about my last post on Toyota.

Then yesterday, I had a great conversation with Robert "Doc" Hall, one of the founding members of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence.

Doc shared his ideas about "post-Toyota lean" - the idea that we now have a lot of history with implementing lean manufacturing techniques and lean thinking. One would think that we would have learned some things about how to do it well outside of Toyota!

This idea intrigues me because on the product development side, there are some companies doing things that look awfully "lean" but who have no connection to the Toyota Product Development System.

Google is one of the most visible examples, with its creative use of technology to support rapid learning cycles on new features, the way that it avoids overload by giving engineers "personal time" to work on ideas of their own, and its willingness to pursue multiple alternatives at once.

What makes a product development organization lean? Here is my definition: "Product developers systematically solving problems permanently to maximize (value - waste) across the entire system."

Meanwhile, Doc Hall has taken a hard look at how new economic pressures will change the world of business: climate change, limits to growth and resource constraints. The opportunities will continue to be rich, but the goals will be different: conservation not excess, sustainability not growth-at-all-costs, a more balanced set of metrics than simple financial results.

Doc calls this model Compression. He has a fantastic electronic mind map that visualizes his thinking.

In the post-Toyota lean world, we have much to learn from companies like PortionPac Chemicals that seek to systematically maximize (value - waste) across the global system.