The term lean maintenance describes a methodology that focuses on eliminating waste and continually identifying opportunities for improvement. Over time, a lean approach to maintenance extends the useful life of assets, maximizes profitability, improves resource allocation, and enables more efficient maintenance planning and maintenance scheduling.  

Lean principles originated with the Toyota Motor Corp. Instilling the value of ideas like kaizen (continuous improvement) helped Toyota outpace its competitors and set a global standard for efficient production processes. Today, lean manufacturers follow Toyota’s lead to reduce unplanned downtime, overproduction, idle time, extra surplus, and other types of waste.  

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