The term, lean thinking originated from the Toyota Production System. This term was first used by Krafcik and popularized by Womack and Jones, in 1992 with the publication of the book "the machine that changed the world".
Despite the origin of lean thinking in the industrial context, its principles have been used in various scenarios, including health. This universal applicability of the lean concept is due to the similarity of the production processes of organizations, regardless of their specific nature, which tries to plan and execute a series of actions in a certain sequence and time, to provide value for a customer The introduction of lean thinking in health, or, lean healthcare, occurred in a structured and systematic way in 2006.