Greater efficiency and waste reduction are the hallmarks of a lean production process. Lean production ultimately leads to reduced costs, however, quality improvements can also be achieved. This unit investigates the lean production methods discovered by Japanese factories and spread worldwide, with names like kaizen, kanban and andon. For such methods to thrive, the organisation must adopt a total quality management (TQM) approach, investing resources to quality circles and benchmarking to achieve continuous improvement. 

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Quality can come in many forms, and businesses need to decide the balance between quality control and quality assurance. They also need to determine what national and international quality standards to benchmark their practices against.