Criticisms of Lean

Lean faces a great deal of criticism, despite the numerous examples of its successful usage across a broad range of industries. This criticism is, in large part, justified. When I first began my writing career, I came across a disturbing figure in my research. There was limited hard data as to the effectiveness of Lean, but one of the few data points I did find said that 76% of attempts at continuous improvement failed to deliver on the initial promise.

Fast forward a decade, and a similar number recently came across my radar from another study. It said 70% of companies reporting that they started Lean efforts within the previous 2 years had failed to break the 5% improvement barrier in regard to cost cutting. (AlixPartners, 2011)

Most people who promote Lean discount the criticisms of it, if they address them at all. The truth is that there are quite a few drawbacks, or perceived drawbacks that should be addressed before taking on the challenge of trying to create a continuous improvement culture.

Let’s take a look at some of the major criticisms of Lean.

Lean Doesn’t Actually Work

As mentioned in the overview, the elephant in the room in any Lean discussion is that it doesn’t actually work. Around ¾ of companies attempting some form of it fail to get the results they want to achieve. In cases where they do get initial gains, they are short-lived, and the company regresses to pre-Lean performance.

Assessment: True for most companies

This statement is true for most companies—for about ¾ of them to be exact. Lean is hard, and most companies trying it fail. They don’t fail because the principles are faulty. Look at it like health and fitness. It is easy, in theory, to become lean with a healthy BMI. Eat less food overall. The food you do eat should be nutritious. Exercise more. Get good sleep. Not too complicated, but yet the US, and much of the rest of the world for that matter, is facing an obesity crisis.

The major culprit is that few companies actually attempt to change their culture. They apply the tools, but don’t create an infrastructure to support the tools. As a result, when there is a problem, the tools flounder. People then attempt workarounds to get production back on track instead of dealing with the root of the problem.

Another big culprit is management. They apply Lean principles to their team, but not to their own leadership processes. Worse, when there is a problem on the shop floor, they do an end run on processes to get things back on track. Every time they do that, they send a clear message that they are not committed to making Lean work.

If there were an easy answer to this, the number would not be ¾. The key is to proceed in a steady pace, but start with management. (Our Development System addresses this by focusing heavily on management systems in Phase 2: Committing and Phase 3: Starting the Journey.)

When I said this was true for most companies, the flip side is that for the quarter of companies that it is not true for, there is a tremendous upside. Companies that successfully change their culture and allow Lean principles to thrive have a huge advantage over their competition.

There is No Governing Body for Lean

Another common criticism of Lean is that there is no governing body that defines what Lean is. For quality, you have ISO standards. OSHA rules workplace safety. The AMA establishes medical standards.

Lean has no such organization. There is the Lean Enterprise Institute that is highly regarded, and the Shingo Prize is a coveted award presented by the Shingo Institute of Utah State University, but neither has any real authority over how Lean is promoted by the countless Lean practitioners with access to their own websites, myself included.

As a result, the information available to you is both fragmented, and potentially incorrect.

Assessment: True, but typical of many situations

This criticism is true, but so what? Practically anything you face in life is the same. Google any medical ailment you might have, and you’ll get a load of potentially contradictory information. Look for coaching tips for you children’s teams, and you’ll be swamped by an ocean of conflicting information. Searching for parenting tips? Be prepared to be overwhelmed by anyone with an opinion and a computer. Search for a product review, and you’ll be wading through a huge range of opinions that probably include both paid endorsements and disgruntled former employees.

The point is that you’ve got to apply common sense here. Sites that are not effective tend to flounder. Look for those with some longevity. Look for those with a good range of information. Look for reputation.

Lean Focuses Too Much on Costs

One criticism of Lean is that it focuses too much on costs.

Assessment: False

This criticism is false. There is certainly a mantra about removing waste. It stems from the fact that many of the most widely known tools are cost-centric. In reality, the goal of waste reduction is to improve flow. That means higher quality and shorter lead times, both of which improve the customer experience and help the growth side of Lean.

This issue is closely linked to the reason that Lean often fails. The tools are waste-centric, but the philosophy is not, nor are the principles of a Lean management system.

Lean Removes the Margin for Error

Lean removes excess inventory, and takes away the buffer time that is often built into processes. When problems come up, they impact production much more than they otherwise would.

Assessment: True, but that’s a good thing

Lean promotes stressing the system. The analogy is often thought of as lowering the water level in a stream to uncover rocks. Those rocks are barriers to flow.

The problem with excess inventory or buffer time or extra people is that it buries waste. That waste is there whether it is visible or not. When the problem disrupts production, it forces action, and not just a temporary patch. It makes the management team provide the resources to fix the underlying problem. Without this stress to make problems unbearable, they never get resolved.

Lean Doesn’t Check Itself

Lean promotes using facts and data to support decision making, but there is a dearth of information about the effectiveness of Lean, especially when it comes to choosing who to work with.

Assessment: True

The Shingo prize is coveted, but the Shingo Institute does not publish information about how companies do after receiving the award. One independent study showed that three years after receiving the award, companies average growth and profits similar to their peers. (AlixPartners, 2011)

Other than that, it is hard to find any Lean practitioner online who really does a good job with what could be called a scientific study of their performance. Most commonly, you will see a cherry-picked listing of project results. That doesn’t mean that the gains are not true, but they wouldn’t pass the standard of information that most of those same practitioners would require of you when making process changes.

It is understandable. There are confidentiality issues, sample size issues, and the fact that the Lean consulting market is pretty brutal. Even if a Lean consultant doubled the average success rate for Lean implementations, they would still only be helping about 2/3 of companies. That is hard to pitch on a website.

The bottom line is that it is true that most Lean practitioners can’t or won’t provide the complete set of facts and data that would support choosing them over other practitioners. 

Lean Tools are Not Numbers Driven

The 5 Whys doesn’t require numbers. Quick kaizen activity doesn’t require numbers. Cause and effect diagrams don’t require numbers.

Assessment: Partially true

Some Lean tools don’t require numbers, and it is true that one of the philosophies of Lean is to make quick daily improvements. Neither of these require numbers.

But PD (policy deployment) is numbers driven. KPIs and countermeasures and daily management and kanban are all numbers driven. Pareto charts are numbers driven.

Lean requires a blend of speed and deliberate activity. The high-level decisions are nearly always based on data. Frontline, quick changes are based on experience and trial and error. It works because it balances the need for numbers with the need for steady improvement.

One of the reasons this is perceived as a mark against Lean is that Six Sigma is extremely number-centric. The problem is that few people can break out the entire Six Sigma toolkit the way they can for Lean. I like seeing people act with facts and data, but the most important part is actually seeing them act. I prefer acting on the 60-80% picture that Lean numerical tools paint than waiting much longer for the 90+% picture that only a handful of people can create.

Bottom line: balance risk with the need for perfect information. Most process-oriented decisions can be made with some fairly basic data.

Lean Requires Undue Scrutiny on People

Performance data is posted all over the walls, and it is easy to tell who did the work that went into that data. People run around with stopwatches and data is religiously tracked. People are always under the microscope.

Assessment: True, but…

This is a true criticism, but also not one that really should be looked at as a criticism, if it is done correctly.

While numbers can make people feel self-conscious, the truth is that underperforming people are not as well-hidden as they think they are. Their coworkers know who they are, and the management team knows who they are. They might get away with things here and there, but everybody knows who they are.

With facts and data, though, something can be done about it. If the person is a good, diligent, high-character person, the issue is generally training or process problems, which can be fixed.

If the person is a slacker, their performance issues get highlighted and can be fixed in a different manner. While most employees won’t complain to management about a shirking coworker, they also don’t want to carry the other person along. Good employees generally appreciate when other employees have to do what they are supposed to.

The problem comes when numbers are used incorrectly. They should not be used to target people. They should be used to solve problems. This is a big contributor to failed Lean efforts. If employees feel that management is out to get them, they won’t commit to the efforts. If they think that data is used fairly and transparently, and it makes things better, they will get on board.

Lean Costs Jobs

Lean improves productivity, so it must cost jobs. If it didn’t there would be no cost reduction.

Assessment: Blatantly False (Or at least it should be)

Lean should never result in layoffs. The truth is, that a management team can do it exactly once. Bosses can make great gains, and then announce a layoff. Of course, they would then see a dramatic reduction in commitment to the Lean process. Nobody is going to work hard on a project if the payoff is a layoff.

If you want to have an effective continuous improvement program, you have to explicitly state no layoffs. And you have to live up to it. Make sure that teams will know what the leaders plan to do with people freed up by improvement efforts.

There are a few options. You can do voluntary layoffs with a sweet severance package. You can create a resource team. You can transfer people. In the most desirable situation, you can defer hiring as you grow the company.

That’s not to say Lean won’t cost anybody their job. Some people will quit because they don’t like it. Others will get fired because they won’t get on board. But that is a discipline problem, not a layoff as a result of improvements.

Lean Takes a LOT of Up Front Work

Lean takes a load of work to get it up and running. You’ve got to train people, build systems, and change a culture. And don’t forget, your business doesn’t get to take a break. You still have to build your product or provide your service.

Assessment: Absolutely, positively, 100% TRUE

This is another key contributor to the reason many attempts at Lean fail. Leaders underestimate the amount of work it will take to change a culture. As a result, the pace of change is glacially slow and backsliding is too easy.

Unfortunately, there is no way around this. It is going to take a lot of effort. You can mitigate it by bringing in temp workers or by working overtime for a while. On the plus side, this also means that if you get over the initial hurdle, things get easier in a hurry. And that initial painful period will act as a deterrent to your competition taking on the same challenge.

Lean Limits Creativity

One of the complaints about Lean is that it takes away all creativity. You are required to follow a process the same way all the time.

Assessment: False

Yes, you have to follow a process, but you get to make the process, and you get to change the process. It would be true to say that Lean changes how you can apply your creativity.

Lean Treats People Like Robots

Some people hate the steady pace of work that Lean requires. They think of takt time (the pace of production) as dehumanizing. They think standard work is intended to turn people into mindless robots.

Assessment: False if done right

This and the previous criticism both link to the same basic principle. All work should be based on a process, and all processes should be standardized. You don’t want your production processes to be dependent upon the skill or speed of a worker. Other processes are linked to your process. So, you have to create a standard.

The problem is not that the work is monotonous. It is. Factory work is repetitive, and when the process is dialed in, there should not be a lot of thought involved. If you require a smart human being to do that same thing day in and day out forever, of course he or she will not thrive.

The key is job rotation and getting people involved in projects to prevent boredom.

Lean Burns People Out

Lean requires process scrutiny. It generally ends up with any extra time being pulled out of a process, and those gaps get filled in with more work.

People feel overwhelmed when they hear they will be doing more.

Assessment: Work gets steadier, but at a more manageable pace.

The problem with this line of thought is that people hear that more work is coming, and they assume that the current work won’t be changing. Most people know that their job will have hiccups and they need any extra time to fix those problems. There tends to be a lot of extra time built into processed to handle those glitched. If nothing changes except to add in more work, then yes, burnout is inevitable.

If it is done right, though, the current work is streamlined, and the problems are addressed. The extra work that is assigned should only be added when there is time to do it. Work becomes steady at a manageable pace rather than periods of sprinting and recuperation.

On top of that, strong management systems provide a means to call for help. If there is an issue, team members should be able to get help in a hurry.

Lean Devalues Skills

With poor processes, special skills at tweaking production processes or cajoling machines are valuable. Firefighting is incredibly valuable. And knowledge of unwritten processes is like gold.

Lean makes people reveal all their secret methods. As processes get better, those people who used to be the superstars that bulldozed production obstacles are needed less and less.

Assessment: Partially true. Lean changes the skills that are valued.

It is true that individual knowledge of processes is no longer valued. In fact, it goes even further than that. If you keep people from sharing in that knowledge, it is a problem.

And Lean does change the nature of what is valued. A problem preventer is much more valuable than a problem responder.

This is a problem only for people who refuse to adapt to the new way of doing things. Instead of valuing knowledge of a specific process, the skill of being able to accurately document a process is valued. Even more valuable is the ability to improve that process.