1. Eliminate all waste and pursue excellence

Lean production is characterized by eliminating all waste, pursuing excellence and continuous improvement. Remove all useless things in the production process. The principle of arrangement for each worker and his position is to add value and remove all positions that do not add value. Streamlining is at its core, streamlining all work that does not add value in product development, design, production, and management, with the aim of responding most quickly to market demand with the highest quality, lowest cost, and highest efficiency.

2. Emphasize the role of people and realize their potential

Lean production methods maximize the transfer of work tasks and responsibilities to workers who add value directly to the product. Moreover, the tasks are assigned to the group and are undertaken by the workers in the group. To this end, workers are required to be proficient in a variety of jobs, reduce workers who do not directly add value, and increase workers' autonomy in production. When the production line fails, the worker has the right to decide on the downtime, find the cause, and make a decision. The team work together to expand the scope of workers' work, stimulating workers' interest and innovation in work, and is more conducive to the implementation of lean production.

3. Zero waste goal

Inventory is a "bane": high inventory is one of the characteristics of mass production. Due to the instability of equipment operation, unreasonable process arrangement, high scrap rate and uneven production, inventory is often not timely, and inventory is considered an essential "buffer". However, lean production considers inventory to be the "culp" of the company. The main reasons are: 1 inventory increases the cost of operation; 2 inventory masks the problem of the enterprise.

Ineffective labor in production and excess labor that enters inventory in advance are wasteful. In order to eliminate these wastes, the lean production method requires unrelenting removal of links and jobs that do not directly add value to the product.

4. Pursuit of perfection, never satisfied

The lean production method regards "endless pursuit of perfection" as the business goal, and pursues continuous improvement in product quality, cost and service. This idea is an important feature that distinguishes it from mass production methods and is the spiritual driving force for lean production to succeed. Just-in-time production (JIT) and continuous improvement (CIP) are the embodiment of lean pursuit of perfection.