The 1990s witnessed the emergence of a new organizational model from Asia called Lean management. This approach aims to continuously optimize work activities by identifying and eliminating sources of waste. It is primarily based on methods pioneered by Toyota after the Second World War. At that time, Japan was striving to rebuild its industry and enhance production quality.
Lean management introduced key concepts, including Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Value Stream Mapping, and the 5S methodology (seiri: sort, seiton: tidy, seiso: clean, seiketsu: standardize, shitsuke: respect). While initially applied to the automotive industry, Lean has since been adapted to various modern business sectors.
Furthermore, Lean significantly influenced the development of agile methods, which are widely used in the IT industry.