What does this tell us? Before charging ahead to find opportunities for waste reduction, why not begin by refocusing attention on what it is these serve to produce the product itself ? After all, it is creating this value that is at the heart of lean; operational steps are simply the means to achieving this end. Reconsidering how production planners originally structured these elements (most likely as stand-alone elements to promote economies of scale under the presumption of stable, predictable demand) and shifting instead to a product family orientation wherever possible can create far more benefit than simply focusing on improving existing processes.