My interest in production systems began in 2001, when I first encountered Lean Thinking through Womack and Jones.
That led me to work for a tier-one Toyota supplier, where I experienced the Toyota Production System in practice. Concepts such as just-in-time production and Kanban were not abstract methods. They were daily operating disciplines that shaped how work moved through the organization.
During my master’s studies in industrial engineering, I became interested in Theory of Constraints after reading Eliyahu Goldratt’s The Goal. That introduced another important lens: performance often depends on finding and managing the real constraint, not improving everything at once.
Later, at Alimex Group, I led business process re-engineering work and became product owner for an ERP implementation. That experience reinforced a principle I still believe strongly: technology should support a redesigned operating model, not automate confusion.
Lean Six Sigma added a more structured problem-solving discipline. As a project champion and later through Black Belt training, I worked on chronic operational problems where data, process understanding, and cross-functional ownership had to come together.
In consulting roles, including change-management work for Bayer’s production-system implementation in Turkey, I saw how technical methods only succeed when the human side of change is treated seriously. Routines, behaviors, leadership alignment, and credibility matter as much as tools.
Agile entered my work through software and digital delivery. At first, it looked like a different world. Over time, the connection became clear. Agile carries many Lean principles into knowledge work: small batches, fast feedback, visible flow, and continuous learning.
Across Lean, Theory of Constraints, Six Sigma, production systems, ERP, and Agile, the language changes. The core question stays the same:
How do we make value flow more reliably to the customer?