Lean production promotes thinkers, not "androids"

Abstract

This paper presents the role of the Lean Production paradigm as promoter of the workers’ human potential. In the literature it is possible to find out many authors who have a negative opinion about Lean Production and consider this organizational model as an extension of Taylorist/Fordist model where the worker is seen as a gear in the “big machine”. Based on literature review and on the Toyota Production System (TPS) principles and history (later coined as “Lean Production”), and by comparing this with other systems, it will be attested that Lean Production is a work organizational model where the worker assumes a position of thinker, continuously looking for improvement. These workers-thinkers are the base for the Learning Organization.