University of Kentucky Lean Systems Program
Logistics & Supply Chain - , ,
University of Kentucky Lean Systems Program Employees
University of Kentucky Lean Systems Program Details
The Lean Systems Program is a university-industry partnership initiated by Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky's president, Fujio Cho, in 1994, to systematically explore, study, and teach the workings of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The program is part of the Institute of Research for Technology Development within the College of Engineering at the University of Kentucky. For over 20 years we've been transferring our understanding of Toyota's approach–what we call True Lean—into practical working strategies. Our goal is to provide critical skill sets for leadership teams, management teams, and associates throughout any organization. Partnership with Toyota continues through the executive-in-residence program in which a Toyota executive serves for a period of time as our primary instructor. With many instructors who are retired Toyota management, and all having either worked at Toyota or other industrial companies, our experience enhances the instruction. Business, industry, health care, and education, are just a few of the sectors that continue to benefit from our courses and coaching services. Once known as lean manufacturing, now True Lean, it's a way to lower operating costs by cutting wastes of all kinds. But it's not just a toolkit. Although concepts such as kanban, 5s, kaizen and 8 Step problem solving are often discussed as if they could be applied in isolation, True Lean practitioners soon realize that lean can't be successfully applied piecemeal. That is, there's no point in solving a problem here, then creating something twice as bad ten feet away – or trying to implement lean on the production floor without the necessary lean accounting and human resources approaches to support it. Doing lean successfully means seeing (and solving problems) in your operations from a systems perspective. To be most successful, it must be an actual cultural transformation within the organization.
