The lean approach to capital acquisitions is quite different from the traditional return-on-investment calculations.
When approaching a major decision relating to the purchase of capital equipment a lean organization will perform a 3P
The 3P team is required to develop several solutions to the problem. Often they are forced
to "think outside the box" because each solution must be quite different: fully automated, fully manual,
similar to current approach, opposite to current approach, etc. 3P also requires the team to evaluate each alternative using an extensive checklist of lean attributes, most of which are non-financial. The financial impact of each alternative is presented on a box score as a part of the decision process. Figure 5 shows a box score used for capital planning.