How long does it take to become Lean?

How long does it take to become Lean?

First, let’s define “becoming Lean” as creating a culture and system that is generally recognizable to other companies as being “Lean.” It’s a vague description, but Lean will mean different things to different people.

The second complicating factor is that the pace will depend upon the motivation and commitment of the company. If they hire a Lean staff and bring in consultants, and spend on the resources that Lean teams need, and get great training materials and commit time to learning, the pace will be higher.

If the company expects Lean to be easy and makes a half-hearted attempt, it will take much longer.

In general, though with average commitment, you’ll start to see Lean take root to where it is recognizable at about the 3-year mark, with high performance at about the 5-year mark. Top-level performance probably won’t happen until 7-9 years down the road.