Lean manufacturing

Lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as Lean, is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. 

Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, value is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Basically, lean is creating more value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System. 

It is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes in order to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world's largest automaker has focused attention on how it has achieved this.

Lean manufacturing is a variation on the theme of efficiency based on optimizing flow; it is a present-day instance of the recurring theme in human history toward increasing efficiency, decreasing waste, and using empirical methods to decide what matters, rather than uncritically accepting pre-existing ideas.