13. Lean Promoted as an Ideology

The fundamental theme of this research focused upon the notion promoting that organisations need to be construing Lean as a philosophy. Whilst the investigations revealed testimonials to this vision, it was discovered that frequently there was a heavy bias towards only the operational elements of Lean. The organisational development, culture, and supporting mechanisms are still not be fully acknowledged, whilst sustainability along with the need to view Lean as an ideology equally was not fully confronted. For the context of this investigation, an analogy is drawn with philosophy whereby philosophers are striving towards a fundamental understanding of whatever exists, including us. It is advocated that philosophy first appeared in the writings of Herodotus and Thucydides (fifth century BC) and could be loosely translated then as the pursuit of knowledge.