Léxico Lean

Compiled by the Lean Enterprise Institute.

Translated and reviewed by Francesca Torrell and Oriol Cuatrecasas.

Fifth Edition - January 2014

We receive many requests from members of the Lean Community asking for definitions of the terms we usually use, from A3 report to Yokoten. In addition, every time we attend events and visit companies we often find general confusion and contradictory use of terms as simple and fundamental as takt time (which is most often confused with cycle time).

Chet Marchwinski, director of communications of the LEI and John Shook, as senior advisor of the LEI, have been answering individual questions for years giving answers to clarify many of the contents of the terminology and publishing these clarifications on the Community website. However, many Lean thinkers keep asking the meaning of lean terms and we have decided that the best way is to simply write them in a place we call LÉXICO LEAN.