operations-and-lean

# Operations and Lean Operations is the function that transforms inputs into outputs at acceptable cost, quality, and timing. Lean is the body of thought — rooted in the Toyota Production System (TPS) — that treats waste elimination as the primary operational lever, and flexibility as the route to scale that mass production cannot match. This skill catalogs the core TPS techniques with worked examples, contrasts lean against Ford's mass-production template, and gives decision guidance for when each applies. **Agent affinity:** ohno (TPS and waste elimination), ford (mass production and assembly-line history) **Concept IDs:** bus-business-structures, bus-cost-benefit-analysis, bus-break-even-analysis ## The Operations Toolbox at a Glance | # | Technique | Best for | Key signal | |---|---|---|---| | 1 | Seven wastes (muda) | Diagnosing operational drag | Productivity has plateaued despite effort | | 2 | Just-in-time (JIT) | Reducing inventory and lead time | Warehouses full but stockouts still happen | | 3 | Kanban | Pull-based production signaling | Upstream produces more than downstream consumes | | 4 | Jidoka (autonomation) | Quality at the source | Defects detected late in the process | | 5 | SMED (single-minute exchange) | High-variety, small-batch production | Changeovers dominate the schedule | | 6 | 5 Whys | Root-cause analysis for recurring problems | Fixes repeatedly fail to hold | | 7 | Value stream mapping | End-to-end flow diagnosis | Nobody sees the whole pro...