The 5 Core Principles

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  The 5 core principles of a Lean Organization were first written about in a book entitled: Lean Thinking by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones.  The 5 core principles are widely accepted as a means implementing and establishing a lean organization.  The 5 core principles are:

1. Define Value from the Customer's Perspective - This is where you would specify what creates value from a customer's point of view.  A common way of doing this is by asking "what is my customer willing to pay for?"

​2. Map the Value Stream - Here you identify all of the steps contained within the entire value stream.  

3. Make value flow through the elimination of waste - The goal here is to make customer value flow through the value stream as efficiently and effectively as possible.  That means creating customer value and eliminating anything that is not customer value from the value stream.  

4. Respond only to the Pull of the Customer - This principle tells us to only produce what the customer is creating a demand for.  In other words what they are pulling for.  This principle also tells us that along with making only what the customer is pulling for we should make what the customer is pulling for in the correct quantity, just-in-time and in the optimum quality.

5. Pursuit Perfection - Always strive for perfection by continuously improving and removing any type of waste.  

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