The Right to Stop: Epistemic Work-in-Progress and Operational Corrigibility in Lean Systems

Lean transformations can preserve the visible apparatus of the Toyota Production System (TPS) while reversing the control rights that make the operating model answerable to reality. This conceptual synthesis interprets TPS as a constitution through which evidence can interrupt plans, summon response and revise standards, with andon as its clearest operational expression. It develops a two-inventory model linking production work-in-progress – unfinished customer work – to epistemic work-in-progress – unresolved contradictions that have entered the organisation’s correction flow. An admission boundary separates abnormalities that remain undetected, unsignalled or rejected from those granted standing and ownership. Applied to the resulting post-admission flow, Little’s Law and heavy-traffic logic explain why high utilisation of correction capacity produces disproportionate waiting, ageing evidence and delayed revision. The paper further proposes observability collapse: pressure to meet immediate operating demands can weaken detection, signalling, admission and response before official performance measures deteriorate. Reported problem counts therefore do not uniquely identify system health: they may rise as sensing improves or fall as detection, signalling or admission deteriorates. The paper then examines how Lean mechanisms change sign when stopping rights, response obligations and authority to revise are shifted away from the work and towards central authority, turning visual management into surveillance, standards into compliance scripts and improvement into programme self-certification. It derives testable propositions and a measurement architecture. The paper proposes operational corrigibility – the capacity to have the operating model corrected by reality quickly, safely and repeatedly – as a more exact objective than operational excellence conceived as a state to be certified. Independent research paper published by Second Law Studio. This version has not undergone formal peer review.