This is yet another example of the inappropriate application of civilian business processes to military operations. It's all very well applying the LEAN process to day-to-day working practices in peacetime, but it will prove to be a severe handicap in war ops.
The same thing happened with JUST-IN-TIME logistics. The concept is extremely cost effective, in that spares and equipment are supplied on an as-required basis. Now, for a production line in a factory, the requirement can be predicted many months in advance and a contract for supply laid; hence there is no need to maintain large quantities of components, tying up capital that could be used elsewhere - components are delivered just-in-time for their use during the manufacturing process. However, you can see that if something like the Falklands arises, there is not the time to build up a stock of essential spares to ship immediately to where they are needed. The last Gulf operation suffered extensively from the earlier adoption of that process.
And industry will not or cannot suddenly gear up at short notice to produce quantities of materiel that the Forces need in the short run-up to any conflict. We are not in the same situation as WWII, where the whole country was put on a war footing specifically to support the Armed Forces.
LEAN is the same. You can't cut out all the 'fat', because you are going to need extra TRAINED bodies to supplement the war machine at all levels, from the front to the rear echelons. Furthermore, war ops carries its own consequences for LEAN. For example, during GW1, the powers that be refused to allow the introduction of war servicing schedules; that meant that hours- and time-related servicing was deferred, and a monstrous post-war catch-up severely limited the ac availability for post war ops, as well as putting a huge strain on the engineering organisation. Now apply LEAN to that scenario, and it will be interesting to watch the engineering recovery process, at the same time conducting post war support ops.
What happened was that some enterprising Engineer saw LEAN as an excellent, efficiency-promoting process that he considered could be applied to Service ops. Having written copious papers, complete with convincing stats and case studies, persuaded the powers-that-be that efficiency would go through the roof [probably accompanied by huge financial savings - easy to incorporate into the arguments]. Unfortunately, it was not thought through with regard to the full picture; we are therefore saddled with yet another scheme that will come back and bite us a few years down the line. Meantime, tea, medals and promotion all round and a few more articles making the Forces engineers look good in the journals of the Institute of Directors, the Chartered Management Institute, et al….
LEAN will be back to bite us in a few years - I will remind you in my 'I told you so' post. Unfortunately, the additional cost will include body bags...