Lean has a longer and more color ful history than most of us think, with

The elements that make Lean a 

powerful competitive tool have 

been used throughout history

A Lean fighting

machine

So how are some companies able 

to continuously improve and gain com-

petitive advantage? Two essential factors 

are speed and agility. To illustrate how 

they function, we’ll take a look at some 

important battles — both military battles 

and business battles. 

Speed and agility

Speed is essential because when 

decisions happen quickly, response 

time goes down and improvements can 

be continuous. 

In Lean, Kaizen events are great 

for focusing on a single area, but 

Toyota now rarely does traditional 

Kaizen events because their continu-

ous improvement makes long Kaizen 

events unnecessary. 

As an example of how speed and 

continuous improvement translate into 

increased market share, let’s take a look 

SEPTEMBER 2012  

▲  

DIGGER 

33

---

▲

  

A LEAn fIGhTInG MAchInE

at what became known as the H-Y wars 

in the 1980s. 

During this particular business 

battle, Honda gained significant market 

share over Yamaha by releasing 113 

new models of motorcycles within a 

couple of years, compared to Yamaha’s 

30. Honda had discovered how to 

release a new model, gather customer 

feedback, improve the motorcycle, and 

release another model much faster than 

Yamaha did. As a result, Honda gained 

competitive advantage through speed.

We’ll define agility as the abil-

ity to quickly change from one option 

to another based on current needs. A 

simple example is putting production 

equipment on wheels so that if you find 

a way to improve flow, you can quickly 

move equipment into a new position. 

Interestingly, you can read about 

both of these concepts in Sun Tzu’s book 

The Art of War, which was written 2,500 

years ago. How did the Mongols defeat 

the Roman army? Speed and agility.

Shortly after writing his book In 

Search of Excellence, Tom Peters wrote 

Thriving on Chaos, which was based on 

the theory that if you want to gain com-

petitive advantage, you create chaos in 

the minds of your competitor through 

speed and agility.

Speed and agility altered the 

course of history during World War 

II. The Battle of Dunkirk was one of 

the most significant losses the English 

army ever experienced. In May of 

1940, the Germans launched an attack 

on the Netherlands and Belgium, and 

the English and French, who greatly 

outnumbered the Germans, expected 

to fight the same kind of war they had 

fought in World War I. The historical 

precedent for the kind of trench war-

fare used in WWI was set during the 

American civil war, the Napoleonic 

wars, and others.

Unbeknownst to the English, the 

Germans had changed strategy and 

were carrying out a blitzkrieg, or light-

ning war. In only 10 days, the Germans 

had completely surrounded the English 

and French, in spite of having old tanks 

and outdated equipment. They used the 

concepts of speed and agility to defeat 

armies that outnumbered them and 

had much better technology. They had 

a clear strategy, and pushed decision-

making down to the front line teams of 

tank commanders.

When you look at your company’s 

performance, do you see evidence of 

speed and agility, or have there been 

missed opportunities because your 

operations were slow to respond to 

changing demands?