Back in the 1950s, Taiichi Ohno, chief of production at Toyota, became interested in whether his company’s production line could run more efficiently. He introduced technical and structural changes to cut as much waste as possible from the production process — and it worked.
Ohno’s theories were picked up and copied by other carmakers, and then by other industries. Gradually, his methods evolved into a management system known as “lean.”
Although it is not without its critics, nowadays lean is used in industries ranging from aeronautics to supermarkets. But could it also be used to help NGOs?