64 Lean Production and Its Application Appraisal

Lean production has been regarded as the third production paradigm after craft-ship production and mass production. Because it incorporates craft-ship production's high quality and mass production' low quality, making enterprises more easily adapted to customer's demand which is characterized as high variety and low volume, so lean production is being learnt and applied by more and more enterprises. In order to improve competitiveness, the enterprises in China began to learn and apply lean production at late 1980s. But the absence of united definition and reasonable appraisal tool to lean production has hampered its smooth application. Under such background, this paper gives out one comprehensive definition to lean production by referring related research, then analyzes the benefits brought by it and sets up reasonable index system. Finally, grey theory is introduced into the area of appraising lean production's application and a case is given to show the method's feasibility.