In my last post I noted that, compared to many other human undertakings, business suffers from a lack of precise definitions, especially the definition of the customer.
As Deming pointed out, understanding the needs and wants of the customers is fundamental to business success. But loose definitions like that of “customer” are disturbingly common in many business environments.
In contrast, people in a Lean environment are expected to question, think about, and precisely evaluate virtually everything. So let’s think some more about the customer.