Just a few years ago most PCs were 640K and 30 MHz. Today, 12 MB and 150 MHz is hardly adequate to do the same basic jobs (word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics). Of course, there is no doubt that today's systems can do a whole lot better a whole lot faster. But 20 times better? How much software in your computer is never used (not the packages, but the actual code)? The same goes for MRPII, now repackaged as ERP.

The Lean way is to remove waste before automating, or as Michael Hammer would say "don't automate, obliterate!" The waste of inappropriate systems should not be confined to computers and automation. Indeed, how much record keeping, checking, reconciling, is pure waste? (Recall the categories of waste)

Recently, as more work has been done in supply chains and on business reengineering, the waste of inappropriate systems has been highlighted. Often, it's not the operations that consume the time and the money; it's the paperwork or systems. And we now understand a little more of the dangers of demand amplification, of inappropriate forecasting, and of measurement systems that make people do what is best for them but not best for the company. All this is waste.