Is the theory of constraints compatible with lean thinking and can the two approaches be used together? This article looks at some of the similarities and differences between the two approaches and suggests how they might be coupled to advantage.

The book, Lean Lexicon: A Graphical Glossary for Lean Thinkers (Lean Enterprise Institute, 2003) defines lean production as: “A business system for organizing and managing product development, operations, suppliers, and customer relations that requires less human effort, less space, less capital, and less time to make products with fewer defects to precise customer desires, compared with the previous system of mass production.”

As the Lean Lexicon states, lean production was pioneered by Toyota after World War II and typically required half the human effort, half the manufacturing space and capital investment for a given amount of capacity, and a fraction of the development and lead time of mass production systems—while making products in wider variety at lower volumes with many fewer defects. The term “lean” was coined by John Krafcik, a research assistant at MIT with the International Motor Vehicle Program in the late 1980s.

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