Lean and World Class Manufacturing and the Information Technology Dilemma—The Loss of Corporate Consciousness
Ron Crabtree - September 23, 2005

Introduction

Lean and world class companies, and those that are actively on the journey toward a world class level of performance are generally admired and used as a benchmark. Yet, many of these companies, in their quest to "get lean," have fallen victim to what we will call a loss of corporate consciousness, which results from manually implemented and supported lean and world class manufacturing methodologies. Is manually implemented and supported methodologies such a bad thing? Only when the company loses sight of the total dynamics of the business and loses its ability to quickly react to changes in the market place. When corporate consciousness is lost, so are some of the benefits that lean and world class manufacturing offers...