Robbing is taking parts from an item of equipment, aircraft etc when the intention is to later replace the robbed parts so that the donor parent item will later be made serviceable.
Cannibalisation is taking parts from an item for which there is no intention to make it serviceable in the future. (eg cat 5 or scrapped aircraft or LRUs)
This thread has attracted a lot of negative criticism regarding the lean process and I agree that the website that was linked seems a typical example of outside consultants setting themselves up as the arbiters of all that is good.
However, it is surely our very job (assuming readers are of higher rank than SAC) to seek better ways of doing our business. If that means cutting jobs then so be it, if it means establishing more posts then so be it. The problem stems from the fact that too often we are told that we must achieve measurable reductions in costs without any consideration being made over effectiveness or efficiency.
Efficiency is not a dirty word ("Crevice, there's a dirty word Blackadder"). What fouls it all up is the context in which this "efficiency" has to be implemented.