Lean: The Final Frontier

“Lean” comes from manufacturing and is commonly called Lean Manufacturing but over the last 2 decades we’ve started seeing “Lean” in other industries. Industries including:

-Software (Agile, and Lean Startup)
-Health Care (Lean Healthcare)
-Call Centers
-And other service industries

So where to next for Lean? Lean manufacturing will continue to grow in the US as well as the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as their manufacturing capacity and competitiveness increases. In the United States healthcare and the IT industry continue to expand so we will continue to see Lean Healthcare and IT manifestations like Agile and Lean Startup continue to grow. Outside of these areas what could be next for Lean?

To answer that I think we should look to the new (and some old) business models; “socialpreneur“, non-profits, retail, small business, and marketing.