The “pull” rather than “push” point of view first pioneered by the Japanese car manufacturers means that, in lean, everything is seen from the customer’s point of view. Production is defined by the demand from the customer instead of the push from the manufacturer.

“The driver of lean is all from the customer perspective,” says Holmes. “When we talk about value, its value from the customer’s viewpoint. So in any project, we look at the ratio of time in process versus value added time.