“Essentially, the idea is that if you can improve lots of things by a small amount, the net result can make the difference between winning and losing.” Voorbeeld Team Sky: (meer dan) marginale verbeteringen Marginal Gains, zoals toegepast door de succesvolle wielerploeg Team Sky, is een voorbeeld van wat aandacht voor Kaizen (continuous improvement) kan opleveren. Hoewel het formeel geen Lean genoemd wordt is het in essentie wel een benadering die daarin goed zou passen. Het gecumuleerde effect is, in tegenstelling tot wat het woord ‘marginal’ doet vermoeden, verre van marginaal. “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together” Dave Brailsford (2012) “Essentially, the idea is that if you can improve lots of things by a small amount, the net result can make the difference between winning and losing. Make sense? So Team Sky examines all aspects of training, physiology, recovery, nutrition, equipment, psychology, racing strategy, and everything else that has an influence on results, and tries to improve every little thing. Each improvement might be very small, but it’s all about the cumulative effect. It’s not a new philosophy but Team Sky has turned it into an art form and, as we all know, it has had three overall wins in the last four Tours de France. The proof of the pudding and all that.” 21
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