Legend and Future Horizon of Lean Concept and Technology

The one of the bestselling business publications entitled “The Machine that Changed the World” stressed the distinctive feature of the way of management of Japanese car industry in terms of the name of lean management. It is well known world-wide that lean management was born in Japan but not quite well recognized on the origin. Essential concept could be formulated during Japanese turbulent period in 15th to 16th century, of which key point is fighting with an indomitable spirit, and is inherited to the concept of making unremitting efforts for business. Conceptual legends are perfect elimination of Muri (Strain), Mura (Variegate), Muda (Waste) on the Plan, Do, Check and Action Cycles (PDCA). This paper tries to figure out historical trend with remarkable milestone concepts of lean management and its future horizon. These includes white box vs. black box approaches, proactive vs. reactive operations and similarity-based model analysis.