Lean IT 1

Lean IT
Lean IT is the extension of lean manufacturing and lean services principles to the development and management of
information technology (IT) products and services. Its central concern, applied in the context of IT, is the elimination
of waste, where waste is work that adds no value to a product or service.
Although lean principles are generally well established and have broad applicability, their extension from
manufacturing to IT is only just emerging.[1] Indeed, Lean IT poses significant challenges for practitioners while
raising the promise of no less significant benefits. And whereas Lean IT initiatives can be limited in scope and
deliver results quickly, implementing Lean IT is a continuing and long-term process that may take years before lean
principles become intrinsic to an organization’s culture.[2]

Extension of Lean to IT
Lean IT definition: Lean IT engages people, using a framework of Lean principles, systems, and tools, to integrate,
align, and synchronize the IT organization with the business to provide quality information and effective information
systems, enabling and sustaining the continuous improvement and innovation of processes. Lean IT has two aspects:
outward facing, supporting the continuous improvement of business processes, and inward-facing, improving the
performance of IT processes and services.[3]
As lean manufacturing has become more widely implemented across many service industries (healthcare, financial
services, transportation, etc.) [4] the extension of lean principles is beginning to spread to IT, which naturally impacts
the performance of all industries. Industry analysts have identified many similarities or analogues between IT and
manufacturing.[4] [5] For example, whereas the manufacturing function manufactures goods of value to customers,
the IT function “manufactures” business services of value to the parent organization and its customers. Similar to
manufacturing, the development of business services entails resource management, demand management, quality
control, security issues, and so on.[5]
Moreover, the migration by businesses across virtually every industry sector towards greater use of online or
e-business services suggests a likely intensified interest in Lean IT as the IT function becomes intrinsic to
businesses’ primary activities of delivering value to their customers. Already, even today, IT’s role in business is
substantial, often providing services that enable customers to discover, order, pay, and receive support. IT also
provides enhanced employee productivity through software and communications technologies and allows suppliers
to collaborate, deliver, and receive payment.
Consultants and evangelists for Lean IT identify an abundance of waste across the business service “production line”,
including legacy infrastructure and fractured processes.[5] By reducing waste through application of lean Enterprise
IT Management (EITM) strategies, CIOs and CTOs in companies such as Tesco, Fujitsu Services, and TransUnion
are driving IT from the confines of a back-office support function to a central role in delivering customer value.[6]
In fact, Lean tools have been applied for many years within IT organizations, through the disciplines of Agile (Lean)
Software Development, and aspects of the ITIL Service Management Framework. It is important to note, however,
that these best practice frameworks do not by themselves address the enterprise-wide scope of Lean IT. It is only
when Lean principles, systems and tools are applied across entire value streams, engaging everyone in active
problem-solving (Kaizen) does the Lean IT perspective add value to the entire enterprise and its customers.
Lean IT 2

Types of Waste in Lean IT

Lean IT promises to identify and eradicate waste that otherwise contributes to poor customer service, lost business,
higher than necessary business costs, and lost employee productivity. To these ends, Lean IT targets eight elements
within IT operations that add no value to the finished product or service or to the parent organization (see Table 1).

Table 1 – Targets of Waste in Lean IT[5]

Waste Element Examples Business Outcome

Defects • Unauthorized system and application Poor customer service, increased costs.
changes.
• Substandard project execution.

Overproduction • Unnecessary delivery of low-value Business and IT misalignment, Increased costs and overheads:
(Overprovisioning) applications and services. energy, data center space, maintenance.

Waiting • Slow application response times. Lost revenue, poor customer service, reduced productivity.
• Manual service escalation procedures.

Non-Value Added • Reporting technology metrics to business Miscommunication.

Processing managers.

Transportation • On-site visits to resolve hardware and Higher capital and operational expenses.
software issues.
• Physical software, security and
compliance audits.

Inventory (Excess) • Server sprawl, underutilized hardware. Increased costs: data center, energy; lost productivity.
• Multiple repositories to handle risks and
control.
• Benched application development teams.

Motion (Excess) • Fire-fighting repeat problems within the IT Lost productivity.

infrastructure.

Employee Knowledge • Failing to capture ideas/innovation. Talent leakage, low job satisfaction, increased support and
(Unused) • Knowledge and experience retention maintenance costs.
issues.
• Employees spend time on repetitive or
mundane tasks.

Whereas each element in the table can be a significant source of waste in itself, linkages between elements
sometimes create a cascade of waste (the so-called domino effect). For example, a faulty load balancer (waste
element: Defects) that increases web server response time may cause a lengthy wait for users of a web application
(waste element: Waiting), resulting in excessive demand on the customer support call center (waste element: Excess
Motion) and, potentially, subsequent visits by account representatives to key customers’ sites to quell concerns about
the service availability (waste element: Transportation). In the meantime, the company’s most likely responses to this
problem — for example, introducing additional server capacity and/or redundant load balancing software), and
hiring extra customer support agents — may contribute yet more waste elements (Overprovisioning and Excess
Inventory).
Lean IT 3

Lean IT Principles

Value Streams
In IT, value streams are the services provided by the IT function to the parent organization for use by customers,
suppliers, employees, investors, regulators, the media, and any other stakeholders. These services may be further
differentiated into:
• Business services (primary value streams)
Examples: point-of-sale transaction processing, ecommerce, and supply chain optimization
• IT services (secondary value streams)
Examples: application performance management, data backup, and service catalog
The distinction between primary and secondary value streams is meaningful. Given Lean IT’s objective of reducing
waste, where waste is work that adds no value to a product or service, IT services are secondary (i.e. subordinate or
supportive) to business services. In this way, IT services are tributaries that feed and nourish the primary business
service value streams. If an IT service is not contributing value to a business service, it is a source of waste. Such
waste is typically exposed by value-stream mapping.

Value-Stream Mapping
Lean IT, like its lean manufacturing counterpart, involves a methodology of value-stream mapping[7] —
diagramming and analyzing services (value streams) into their component process steps and eliminating any steps (or
even entire value streams) that don’t deliver value.

Flow
Flow relates to one of the fundamental concepts of Lean as formulated within the Toyota Production System —
namely, mura. A Japanese word that translates as “unevenness,” mura is eliminated through just-in-time systems that
are tightly integrated. For example, a server provisioning process may carry little or no inventory (a waste element in
Table 1 above) with labor and materials flowing smoothly into and through the value stream.
A focus on mura reduction and flow may bring benefits that would be otherwise missed by focus on muda (the
Japanese word for waste) alone. The former necessitates a system-wide approach whereas the latter may produce
suboptimal results and unintended consequences. For example, a software development team may produce code in a
language familiar to its members and which is optimal for the team (zero muda). But if that language lacks an API
standard by which business partners may access the code, a focus on mura will expose this otherwise hidden source
of waste.

Pull/Demand System
Pull (also known as demand) systems are themselves closely related to the aforementioned flow concept. They
contrast with push or supply systems. In a pull system, a pull is a service request. The initial request is from the
customer or consumer of the product or service. For example, a customer initiates an online purchase. That initial
request in turn triggers a subsequent request (for example, a query to a database to confirm product availability),
which in turn triggers additional requests (input of the customer’s credit card information, credit verification,
processing of the order by the accounts department, issuance of a shipping request, replenishment through the
supply-chain management system, and so on).
Push systems differ markedly. Unlike the “bottom-up,” demand-driven, pull systems, they are “top-down,”
supply-driven systems whereby the supplier plans or estimates demand. Push systems typically accumulate large
inventory stockpiles in anticipation of customer need. In IT, push systems often introduce waste through an
over-abundance of “just-in-case” inventory, incorrect product or service configuration, version control problems, and
Lean IT 4

incipient quality issues.[5]

Implementation of Lean IT
Implementation begins with identification and description of one or more IT value streams.[8] For example, aided by
use of interviews and questionnaires, the value stream for a primary value stream such as a point-of-sale business
service may be described as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 – Example: Description of a Point-of-Sale Value Stream[5]

Value Metrics Demand Pulls [9]
SLAs

“Owner” of Business Result EVP of Store Operations[10] • [11] • Budget reviews • Transaction speed
CAPEX
[12] • Strategic reviews • Service continuity
• OPEX
• Store redesign • Implementation speed
• Labor efficiency
• Store openings
• Ease of use
• Check-out speed

End Customer Cashiers • Check-out speed • Transactions • Transaction speed

• Ease of use • Log ons • Service continuity

End Customer Shoppers • Payment types • Transactions • Transaction speed

• Check-out speed • Service continuity
• Ease of use

Table 2 suggests that the Executive Vice President (EVP) of Store Operations is ultimately responsible for the
point-of-sale business service, and he/she assesses the value of this service using metrics such as CAPEX, OPEX,
and check-out speed. The demand pulls or purposes for which the EVP may seek these metrics might be to conduct a
budget review or undertake a store redesign. Formal service-level agreements (SLAs) for provision of the business
service may monitor transaction speed, service continuity, and implementation speed. The table further illustrates
how other users of the point-of-sale service — notably, cashiers and shoppers — may be concerned with other value
metrics, demand pulls, and SLAs.
Having identified and described a value stream, implementation usually proceeds with construction of a value stream
map — a pictorial representation of the flow of information, beginning with an initial demand request or pull and
progressing up the value stream. Although value streams are not as readily visualizable as their counterparts in lean
manufacturing, where the flow of materials is more tangible, systems engineers and IT consultants are practiced in
the construction of schematics to represent information flow through an IT service.[5] To this end, they may use
productivity software such as Microsoft Visio and computer-aided design (CAD) tools. However, alternatives to
these off-the-shelf applications may be more efficient (and less wasteful) in the mapping process.
One alternative is use of a configuration management database (CMDB),[13] which describes the authorized
configuration of the significant components of an IT environment. Workload automation software, which helps IT
organizations optimize real-time performance of complex business workloads across diverse IT infrastructures, and
other application dependency mapping tools can be an additional help in value stream mapping.[14]
After mapping one or more value streams, engineers and consultants analyze the stream(s) for sources of waste. The
analysis may adapt and apply traditional efficiency techniques such as time-and-motion studies as well as more
recent lean techniques developed for the Toyota Production System and its derivatives. Among likely outcomes are
methods such as process redesign, the establishment of “load-balanced” workgroups (for example, cross-training of
software developers to work on diverse projects according to changing business needs), and the development of
performance management “dashboards” to track project and business performance and highlight trouble spots.[2]
Lean IT 5

Trends towards Lean IT

Recessionary Pressure to Reduce Costs

The onset of economic recession in December 2007[15] was marked by a decrease in individuals’ willingness to pay
for goods and services[16] — especially in face of uncertainty about their own economic futures. Meanwhile, tighter
business and consumer credit,[17] a steep decline in the housing market,[18] higher taxes,[19] massive lay-offs,[20] and
diminished returns in the money and bond markets[21] have further limited demand for goods and services.
When an economy is strong, most business leaders focus on revenue growth. During periods of weakness, when
demand for good and services is curbed, the focus shifts to cost-cutting.[6] In-keeping with this tendency, recessions
initially provoke aggressive (and somes panic-ridden) actions such as deep discounting, fire sales of excess
inventory, wage freezes, short-time working, and abandonment of former supplier relationships in favor of less
costly supplies. Although such actions may be necessary and prudent, their impact may be short-lived.[16] Lean IT
can expect to garner support during economic downturns as business leaders seek initiatives that deliver more
enduring value than is achievable through reactive and generalized cost-cutting.[22]

Proliferation of Online Transactions

IT has traditionally been a mere support function of business, in common with other support functions such as
shipping and accounting. More recently, however, companies have moved many mission-critical business functions
to the Web.[23] This migration is likely to accelerate still further as companies seek to leverage investments in
service-oriented architectures, decrease costs, improve efficiency, and increase access to customers, partners, and
employees.[24]
The prevalence of web-based transactions is driving a convergence of IT and business.[25] In other words, IT services
are increasingly central to the mission of providing value to customers. Lean IT initiatives are accordingly becoming
less of a peripheral interest and more of an interest that is intrinsic to the core business.

Green IT
Though not born of the same motivations, Lean IT initiatives are congruent with a broad movement towards
conservation and waste reduction, often characterized as green policies and practices. Green IT is one part of this
broad movement.[26]
Waste reduction directly correlates with reduced energy consumption and carbon generation. Indeed, IBM asserts
that IT and energy costs can account for up to 60% of an organization's capital expenditures and 75% of operational
expenditures.[27] In this way, identification and streamlining of IT value streams supports the measurement and
improvement of carbon footprints and other green metrics.[28] For instance, implementation of Lean IT initiatives is
likely to save energy through adoption of virtualization technology and data center consolidation.[29] [30]

Challenges for Lean IT

Value-Stream Visualization
Unlike lean manufacturing, from which the principles and methods of Lean IT derive, Lean IT depends upon value
streams that are digital and intangible rather than physical and tangible. This renders difficult the visualization of IT
value streams and hence the application of Lean IT. Whereas practitioners of lean manufacturing can apply visual
management systems such as the kanban cards used in the Toyota Production System, practitioners of Lean IT must
use Enterprise IT Management tools to help visualize and analyze the more abstract context of IT value streams.[31]
Lean IT 6

Reference Implementations
As an emerging area in IT management (see Deployment and Commercial Support), Lean IT has relatively few
reference implementations. Moreover, whereas much of the supporting theory and methodology is grounded in the
more established field of lean manufacturing, adaptation of such theory and methodology to the digital
service-oriented process of IT is likewise only just beginning. This lack makes implementation challenging, as
evidenced by the problems experienced with the March 2008 opening of London Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5.
British airports authority BAA and airline British Airways (BA), which has exclusive use of the new terminal, used
process methodologies adapted from the motor industry to speed development and achieve cost savings in
developing and integrating systems at the new terminal.[32] However, the opening was marred by baggage handling
backlogs, staff parking problems, and cancelled flights.[33]

Resistance to Change
The conclusions or recommendations of Lean IT initiatives are likely to demand organizational, operational, and/or
behavioral changes that may meet with resistance from workers, managers, and even senior executives. Whether
driven by a fear of job losses, a belief that existing work practices are superior, or some other concern, such changes
may encounter resistance. For example, a Lean IT recommendation to introduce flexible staffing whereby
application development and maintenance managers share personnel is often met with resistance by individual
managers who may have relied on certain people for many years. Also, existing incentives and metrics may not align
with the proposed staff sharing.[2] [34]

Fragmented IT Departments
Even though business services and the ensuing flow of information may span multiple departments, IT organizations
are commonly structured in a series of operational or technology-centric silos, each with its own management tools
and methods to address perhaps just one particular aspect of waste. Unfortunately, fragmented efforts at Lean IT
contribute little benefit because they lack the integration necessary to manage cumulative waste across the value
chain.[5]

Integration of Lean Production and Lean Consumption

Related to the aforementioned issue of fragmented IT departments is the lack of integration across the entire supply
chain, including not only all business partners but also consumers. To this end, Lean IT consultants have recently
proposed so-called lean consumption of products and services as a complement to lean production.[35] In this
regard, the processes of provision and consumption are tightly integrated and streamlined to minimize total cost and
waste and to create new sources of value.

Deployment and Commercial Support

Deployment of Lean IT has been predominantly limited to application development and maintenance (ADM). This
focus reflects the cost of ADM.[5] Despite a trend towards increased ADM outsourcing to lower-wage economies,[36]
the cost of developing and maintaining applications can still consume more than half of the total IT budget.[2] In this
light, the potential of Lean IT to increase productivity by as much as 40% while improving the quality and speed of
execution[2] makes ADM a primary target (the “low-hanging fruit,” so to speak) within the IT department.
Opportunity to apply Lean IT exists in multiple other areas of IT besides ADM. For example, service catalog
management is a Lean IT approach to provisioning IT services. When, say, a new employee joins a company, the
employee’s manager can log into a web-based catalog and select the services needed. This particular employee may
need a CAD workstation as well as standard office productivity software and limited access to the company’s
extranet. On submitting this request, provisioning of all hardware and software requirements would then be
Lean IT 7

automatic through a lean value stream. In another example, a Lean IT approach to application performance
monitoring would automatically detect performance issues at the customer experience level as well as triage, notify
support personnel, and collect data to assist in root-cause analysis.[5] Research suggests that IT departments may
achieve sizable returns from investing in these and other areas of the IT function.[37]
Among notable corporate examples of Lean IT adopters is UK-based grocer Tesco,[38] which has entered into
strategic partnerships with many of its suppliers, including Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Coca-Cola, eventually
succeeding in replacing weekly shipments with continuous deliveries throughout the day. By moving to eliminate
stock from either the back of the store or in high-bay storage, Tesco has gotten markedly closer to a just-in-time pull
system (see Pull/Demand System).[6] [39] [40] Lean IT is also attracting public-sector interest, in-keeping with the
waste-reduction aims of the Lean Government movement. One example is the City of Cape Coral, Florida, where
several departments have deployed Lean IT.[41] The city’s police records department, for instance, reviewed its
processing of some 20,000 traffic tickets written by police officers each year, halving the time for an officer to write
a ticket and saving $2 million. Comparable benefits have been achieved in other departments such as public works,
finance, fire, and parks and recreation.[42] [43]

Complementary Methodologies
Although Lean IT typically entails particular principles and methods such as value streams and value-stream
mapping, Lean IT is, on a higher level, a philosophy rather than a prescribed metric or process methodology. In this
way, Lean IT is pragmatic and agnostic. It seeks incremental waste reduction and value enhancement, but it does not
require a grand overhaul of an existing process, and is complementary rather than alternative to other methodologies.

Agile, Scrum and Lean Software development

Agile is a set of software development methods that originated as a response for the indiscriminated use of CMMI,
RUP and PMBOK creating fat and slow software development processes that normally increased the lead time, the
work in progress and value/non value added activities ratio on projects and includes methods like XP, Scrum, FDD,
AUP, DSDM, Crystal, and others.
Scrum is one of the more well known agile methods for project management, and has as one of its origins concepts
from Lean Thinking. Scrum also organizes work in a cross-functional, multidisciplinar work cell and uses some form
of kanban system to visualize and limit work in progress, and follows the PDCA cycle, and continuous
improvements, that is the base of Lean.

Six Sigma
Whereas Lean IT focuses on customer satisfaction and reducing waste, Six Sigma focuses on removing the causes of
defects (errors) and the variation (inconsistency) in manufacturing and business processes using quality management
and, especially, statistical methods.[44] Six Sigma also differs from Lean methods by introducing a special
infrastructure of personnel (e.g. so-called “Green Belts” and “ Black Belts”) in the organization. Six Sigma is more
oriented around two particular methods (DMAIC and DMADV), whereas Lean IT employs a portfolio of tools and
methods. These differences notwithstanding, Lean IT may be readily combined with Six Sigma such that the latter
brings statistical rigor to measurement of the former’s outcomes.[45]
Lean IT 8

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)

The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) from the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon
University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a process improvement approach applicable to a single project, a division, or
an entire organization. It helps integrate traditionally separate organizational functions, set process improvement
goals and priorities, provide guidance for quality processes, and provide a benchmark or point of reference for
assessing current processes.[46] However, unlike Lean IT, CMMI (and other process models) doesn’t directly address
sources of waste such as a lack of alignment between business units and the IT function or unnecessary architectural
complexity within a software application.[2]

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) — a series of books published by the United Kingdom’s
Office of Government Commerce — contains concepts, policies, and recommended practices on a broad range of IT
management topics. These are again entirely compatible with the objectives and methods of Lean IT. Indeed, as
another best-practice framework, ITIL may be considered alongside the CMMI for process improvement and COBIT
for IT governance.

COBIT
Control Objectives for Information and related Technology — better known as COBIT — is a framework or set
of best practices for IT management created by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA),
and the IT Governance Institute (ITGI).[47] It provides managers, auditors, and IT users a set of metrics, processes,
and best practices to assist in maximizing the benefits derived through the use of IT, achieving compliance with
regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, and aligning IT investments with business objectives. COBIT also aims to unify
global IT standards, including ITIL, CMMI, and ISO 17799.[48]

Notes
[1] See "Deployment and Commercial Support" below.
[2] Kindler, Nosh B; Krishnakanthan, Vasantha; Tinaikar, Ranjit. Applying Lean to Application Development (http:/ / www. mckinseyquarterly.
com/ Applying_lean_to_application_development_and_maintenance_1979). McKinsey Quarterly, May 2007
[3] Bell, Steve and Orzen, Mike (2010) Lean IT, Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation, Productivity Press
[4] Hanna, Julia. “ Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries (http:/ / hbswk. hbs. edu/ item/ 5741. html)”. HBS Working Knowledge.
October 22, 2007. (Summary article based on published research of Professor David Upton of Harvard Business School and doctoral student
Bradley Staats: Staats, Bradley R., and David M. Upton. “Lean Principles, Learning, and Software Production: Evidence from Indian Software
Services.”. Harvard Business School Working Paper. No. 08-001. July 2007. (Revised July 2008, March 2009.)
[5] Waterhouse, Peter. “ Improving IT Economics: Thinking Lean (http:/ / www. ca. com/ files/ WhitePapers/ improving-it-economics-wp. pdf)&
rdquo;. CA White Paper. November 2008.
[6] Masters of Lean IT: How 3 Visionary IT Executives Maximize Value and Minimize Waste. Interviews with John Parkinson (Chief Technology
Office, TransUnion), Mike Yorwerth (Group Technology and Architecture Director, Tesco), and Marc Silvester (Chief Technology Office,
Fujitsu Services), published by CA, Inc (2009).
[7] The value-stream methodology originated at Toyota, where it is known as Material and Information Flow Mapping. See Learning to See:
Value-Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda by Mike Rother and John Shook (Lean Enterprise Institute 1999, ISBN
0-9667843-0-8). The methodology has since been developed by James Womack and Daniel Roos while researching their seminal book The
Machine that Changed the World (see References below).
[8] Rother, Mike; Shook, John. Learning to See: Value-Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda. Lean Enterprise Institute 1999.
ISBN 0-9667843-0-8
[9] Service-level agreement
[10] Executive Vice President
[11] capital expenditures
[12] operating expenses
[13] Although repositories similar to CMDBs have been used by IT departments for many years, the term CMDB stems from ITIL (Information
Technology Infrastructure Library) — a series of books published by the United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce containing
concepts, policies, and recommended practices on a broad range of IT management topics
Lean IT 9

[14] The Evolution of Job Scheduling: CA's Approach to Workload Automation (https:/ / www. ca. com/ files/ IndustryAnalystReports/
the_evolution_of_job_scheduling. pdf). (IDC White Paper, November 2007)
[15] Isidore, Chris. “It's official: Recession since Dec '07” (http:/ / money. cnn. com/ 2008/ 12/ 01/ news/ economy/ recession/ index.
htm?postversion=2008120112). CNNmoney.com. December 1, 2008
[16] Jones, Daniel T. Lean Survival (http:/ / www. leanuk. org/ downloads/ dan/ dan_eletter_200903. pdf). Lean Enterprise Academy Letter
e-Letter. March 19, 2009.
[17] Rappaport, Liz; Ng, Serena. “New Fears as Credit Markets Tighten Up.” (http:/ / online. wsj. com/ article/ SB123655494840465843. html).
Wall Street Journal. March 9, 2009
[18] Grynbaum, Michael M. “Outlook Grows More Dire for Housing Market.” (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2008/ 11/ 26/ business/ economy/
26housing. html?em). New York Times. November 25, 2008
[19] Reynolds, Glenn. “Tax Day Becomes Protest Day.” (http:/ / online. wsj. com/ article/ SB123975867505519363. html). Wall Street Journal.
April 15, 2009
[20] Hagenbaugh, Barbara; Krantz, Matt; Kirchhoff, Su. “Wave of layoffs in U.S., Europe show severity of the recession.” (http:/ / www.
usatoday. com/ money/ economy/ 2009-01-26-economy-recession-layoffs_N. htm). USA Today. January 30, 2009
[21] Mamudi, Sam. “ Treasury Money-Market Funds Shut the Door.” (http:/ / www. marketwatch. com/ news/ story/
low-yields-force-treasury-money-market/ story. aspx?guid={F9F52B09-05ED-4C84-9CA6-71FB4FAB7CF8}). MarketWatch: Wall Street
Journal Digital Network. January 27, 2009
[22] “Technology and the Lean Enterprise” (http:/ / www. sap. com/ usa/ solutions/ manufacturing/ pdf/ Technology_and_then_Lean_Enterprise.
pdf) SAP White Paper, January 18, 2008
[23] These include internal business functions such as enterprise resource planning and human resources management, business-to-business
applications such as supply-chain management and hosted solutions, and customer-facing functions such as sales and customer service.
[24] “Customer Experience Manager: Real-Time Visibility into Web-Based Transactions for IT and Business Managers” CA Technology Brief.
March 2009
[25] Merging Information Technology and Business, (http:/ / www. sap. com/ company/ pdf/ New_Economic_Oprties_Germany. pdf) a
commentary by SAP Chairman Henning Kagermann
[26] Verity, John W. “When Green Delivers Green” (http:/ / www. smartenterprisemag. com/ showArticle. jhtml?articleID=212902284). Smart
Enterprise Magazine. Volume 3. No. 1
[27] “Get Lean an Green in 2009.” (http:/ / www-304. ibm. com/ jct03004c/ industries/ publicsector/ us/ en/ contenttemplate/ !!/ xmlid=166767)
IBM product page.
[28] Samson, Ted. “The Green IT Leaders of 2009” (http:/ / www. infoworld. com/ d/ green-it/ green-it-leaders-2009-050) Infoworld April 22,
2009.
[29] “Green IT: Corporate Strategies” (http:/ / www. businessweek. com/ innovate/ content/ feb2008/ id20080211_204672. htm). Business Week.
February 11, 2008
[30] Weston, Rusty. “Greening the Data Center” (http:/ / www. smartenterprisemag. com/ articles/ 2008winter/ markettrends2. jhtml) Smart
Enterprise Magazine. Volume 2. No. 1
[31] CA Enables Lean IT to Help Maximize Value and Minimize Cost (http:/ / www. ca. com/ us/ press/ release. aspx?cid=203332). April 27,
2009.
[32] Chapman, Siobhan. Lean Methods Drive Heathrow Terminal 5 Development (http:/ / www. computerworlduk. com/ management/
it-business/ it-organisation/ news/ index. cfm?newsid=4058) Computerworld UK. July 17, 2007
[33] Werdigier, Julia; Clark, Nicola. New Competition and Cancellations at Heathrow Vex British Airways (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2008/
04/ 01/ business/ worldbusiness/ 01air. html?_r=1& scp=1& sq=British Airways canceled flights Heathrow& st=cse) International Herald
Tribune. April 1, 2009
[34] More generally, challenges of this kind are the subject of change management.
[35] James Womack and Daniel Jones, leading consultants in the field, emphasize that lean consumption isn’t about reducing the amount
customers buy. Rather, it is about providing the full value that customers desire from their goods and services, with the greatest efficiency. See
Womack, James P. and Jones, Daniel T. “Lean Consumption.” Harvard Business Review. March 2005
[36] “ADM Outsourcing: Go/No Go?” (http:/ / www. cio-weblog. com/ 50226711/ adm_outsourcing_go_no_go. php) — commentary on and
excerpts from Aberdeen Group report “Does Outsourcing Application Development, Maintenance Pay Off?
[37] Perry, Randy; Grieser, Tim; Hatcher, Eric. “Improving IT Economics and Gaining Business Value with CA’s Enterprise IT Management
Software: An ROI Study". IDC paper. November 2008. This paper reports that the greatest benefit from adopters of Lean IT is the subsequent
increase in IT productivity, which accounted for approximately 61% of the total benefit ($78,000 for every 100 users).
[38] Tesco operates in the United States under the brand “Fresh & Easy’
[39] Griffith, Victoria. “Welcome to Tesco, Your ‘Glocal’ Superstore.” Strategy+Business. First Quarter 2002
[40] Kleiner, Art. “Leaning Toward Utopia: A Profile of Dan Jones and Jim Womack.” (http:/ / www. leanuk. org/ downloads/ general/
leaning_toward_utopia. pdf) Strategy+Business. July 2005
[41] Lean Government in Cape Coral (Office City Web Site) (http:/ / www. capecoral. net/ Government/ CityManager/ LeanGovernment/ tabid/
1347/ mctl/ ArticleView/ ModuleId/ 3442/ articleId/ 647/ Future-Kaizens. aspx)
[42] Cape Coral Lean Government Update (http:/ / archive. capecoral. net/ fullstory. cfm?articleid=10374)
Lean IT 10

[43] Gilbert, Maria. “The City of Cape Coral Enables Leaner Government with AMX and JD Edwards” (http:/ / www. reuters. com/ article/
pressRelease/ idUS119892+ 06-Mar-2009+ PRN20090306) Reuters. March 6, 2009
[44] Antony, Jiju. “Pros and cons of Six Sigma: an academic perspective” (http:/ / www. onesixsigma. com/ node/ 7630). January 7, 2008
[45] Upton, Malcolm T.; Cox, Charles Lean Six Sigma: A Fusion of Pan-Pacific Process Improvement (http:/ / www. isixsigma. com/ library/
downloads/ LeanSixSigma. pdf).
[46] Software Engineering Institute web site: “What is CMMI?” page (http:/ / www. sei. cmu. edu/ cmmi/ )
[47] ITGI is a U.S.–based research “think tank” on IT governance. oriented predominantly towards enterprises. See the ITGI web site About ITGI
(http:/ / www. itgi. org/ template_ITGI. cfm?Section=About_ITGI& Template=/ ContentManagement/ HTMLDisplay. cfm&
ContentID=41668) for more.
[48] COBIT 4.1 brochure (http:/ / www. isaca. org/ Content/ NavigationMenu/ Members_and_Leaders1/ COBIT6/ Obtain_COBIT/ CobiT4.
1_Brochure. pdf) from the IT Governance Institute (ITGI)

References
• Yasuhiro Monden (1998), Toyota Production System, An Integrated Approach to Just-In-Time, Third edition,
Norcross, GA: Engineering & Management Press, ISBN 0-412-83930-X.
• Womack, James P., and Roos, Daniel T. (2007), The Machine That Changed the World, Free Press, ISBN
978-0-7432-9979-4.
• Womack, James P. and Jones, Daniel T. (2005) “Lean Consumption.” Harvard Business Review.
• Bell, Steve (2006) Lean Enterprise Systems, Using IT for Continuous Improvement, John R. Wiley, ISBN
978-0-471-67784-0.
• Bell, Steve and Orzen, Mike (2010) Lean IT, Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation, Productivity
Press, ISBN 978-1439817568.

External links
• Lean Enterprise Institute (http://www.lean.org/)
• Lean Enterprise Academy (http://www.leanuk.org/)
• Lean Construction Institute (http://www.leanconstruction.org/)
• Lean Software Institute (http://www.leansoftwareinstitute.com/)
• Institute for Healthcare Improvement (http://www.ihi.org/ihi)
• Steady Improvement (http://www.steadyimprovement.com)
• Green IT (http://www.techworld.com/green-it/)
• Ci&T Lean IT (http://www.ciandt.com/)
• Fujitsu Lean IT Case Study (http://www.fujitsu.com/uk/casestudies/fs_fujitsu-lean.html)
Article Sources and Contributors 11

Article Sources and Contributors

Lean IT  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=408436960  Contributors: 2aprilboy, 5 albert square, AliveFreeHappy, Ash, Benjoya, BlurTento, Dfev77, Gaius Cornelius, Htssouza,
Jbernab, Jdmumper, Lean IT Coach, LilHelpa, Mgoode75, MrOllie, Nik.martin, Per Ardua, Rip969, SEI Publications, Servicemanagement101, UncleDouggie, Wikitawe, YUL89YYZ, 10
anonymous edits

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