Lean management advocates have recently begun concerted
efforts to push Lean out of the tool age and help people
understand Lean as a management system. This article
examines what happened when the advocates of an earlier
system of management, Scientific Management, sought to
change the widely-held view that it was nothing more
than a set of tools to improve efficiency. Knowledge of
their efforts might help us succeed, provided Lean has
not already suffered too much damage.