Companies that are seriously pursuing the lean journey soon find their accounting, control, and measurement systems need to change to support the new strategy. The principles and methods of lean thinking and practice are quite different from traditional business and therefore require different measurements.

The changes are driven by both positive and negative needs. The positives include accounting, control, and measurement processes that support the new lean strategy. The negatives are driven by the requirement to eliminate the harmful effects of traditional accounting and measurements. There’s a third change driver that is related to waste: While traditional companies often build increasingly complex accounting systems, lean companies recognize that accounting and measurement systems need to be stripped down to the minimum amount of work.

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