Systematic Innovation in a Lean Management Environment

A Systematic innovation is crucial for increasing organizational effectiveness, enhancing competitiveness and profitability. The lean management philosophy depends on the creation of systematic innovative solutions to improve processes. Lean has been adopted in a large number of companies from different industry sectors; it has moved away from being merely a "shop-floor focus" on waste and cost reduction to an approach that consistently sought to increase value for customers by adding product or service features and removing wasteful activities. The idea is that the value should flow continuously all over the organization, to reach the customer as quick as possible. A lean thinking environment requires a "learning to see" approach, in order to find obstacles (waste) to be removed; this means that it will be vital to research a problem solving methodology to improve the value stream. Traditional engineering and management practices can become insufficient and inefficient for the implementation of new scientific principles or for radical improvements of existing systems. The aim of this study is to build a robust model for TRIZ-LEAN to be tested in organizations. It is intended to determine the real potential and limitations of the new model.