| | |  | Software | Home » » Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated | | | | | | | Description: | | Expanded, updated, and more relevant than ever, this bestselling business classic by two internationally renowned management analysts describes a business system for the twenty-first century that supersedes the mass production system of Ford, the financial control system of Sloan, and the strategic system of Welch and GE. It is based on the Toyota (lean) model, which combines operational excellence with value-based strategies to produce steady growth through a wide range of economic conditions. In contrast with the crash-and-burn performance of companies trumpeted by business gurus in the 1990s, the firms profiled in Lean Thinking -- from tiny Lantech to midsized Wiremold to niche producer Porsche to gigantic Pratt & Whitney -- have kept on keeping on, largely unnoticed, along a steady upward path through the market turbulence and crushed dreams of the early twenty-first century. Meanwhile, the leader in lean thinking -- Toyota -- has set its sights on leadership of the global motor vehicle industry in this decade. Instead of constantly reinventing business models, lean thinkers go back to basics by asking what the customer really perceives as value. (It's often not at all what existing organizations and assets would suggest.) The next step is to line up value-creating activities for a specific product along a value stream while eliminating activities (usually the majority) that don't add value. Then the lean thinker creates a flow condition in which the design and the product advance smoothly and rapidly at the pull of the customer (rather than the push of the producer). Finally, as flow and pull are implemented, the lean thinker speeds up the cycle of improvement in pursuit of perfection. The first part of this book describes each of these concepts and makes them come alive with striking examples. Lean Thinking clearly demonstrates that these simple ideas can breathe new life into any company in any industry in any country. But most managers need guidance on how to make the lean leap in their firm. Part II provides a step-by-step action plan, based on in-depth studies of more than fifty lean companies in a wide range of industries across the world. Even those readers who believe they have embraced lean thinking will discover in Part III that another dramatic leap is possible by creating an extended lean enterprise for each of their product families that tightly links value-creating activities from raw materials to customer. In Part IV, an epilogue to the original edition, the story of lean thinking is brought up-to-date with an enhanced action plan based on the experiences of a range of lean firms since the original publication of Lean Thinking. Lean Thinking does not provide a new management "program" for the one-minute manager. Instead, it offers a new method of thinking, of being, and, above all, of doing for the serious long-term manager -- a method that is changing the world. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9780743249270
• Condition: USED - Like New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| James P. Womack | | Hardcover:
| 396 pages | | Publisher:
| Free Press | | Publication Date:
| June 10, 2003 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0743249275 | | Package Length:
| 9.3 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.3 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.3 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.25 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 60 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Toyota brakes and other cultural mythsApr 16, 2010
The author's example of mind-set of the workers. P.22, the 6 and 9 year children of one, preparing their mother's newsletters in batch steps vs. doing all steps on each newsletter before starting the next newsletter. So, beyond example: Next, the consulting locust flies in with kaikaku, stops the newsletter production line, fixes the value stream the Toyota way, takes all the cash he can from weak management bedazzeled by Lean terminology, then flies away. What is left? Disheartened 6 and 9 year old child-laborers, who instead of mild praise for their work are insulted and the mother-manager, who has to take her newsletters and stuff them herself. Or she can force the children to help with the now "chore" or other chore while Mother gets her newsletters done. This works with a lot of indoctrination with exercises of bowing to the masters in the east: It is unfortunate but necessary that some Toyota drivers must be sacrificed for the overall good of society.
So as to not muda Internet electrons, read this review on this book. It is correct with facts to back up claims. It's not another "best thing I ever read in my life (today)" review by one who drank the kool-aid:
Hot Air and Vague Puffery, December 29, 2005
By Fuzzbean (Nangoku, Japan) - See all my reviews
"This review is from: Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated (Hardcover)
I think this book is largely bogus. Sure there is logic in having an efficient system to your manufacturing process and in buying the machines you actually need instead of something too big or too inflexible. But while the Japanese may have ninjas and 'Asian sexual secrets,' they haven't discovered any new principles of manufacturing that we insecure Americans didn't already know a long time ago. Despite the stylish Japanese mumbo-jumbo, there isn't much in this 'lean thinking' that Henry Ford didn't already have figured out by 1914, although the limitations of the technology of that day prevented him from implementing his ideas fully."
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0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 lean thinkingMar 10, 2010
This is an excellent book on lean operations. Well documented and reality-tested.
Written in plain language, well focused to people who want to learn and understand lean operations.
An excellent guide for implementation
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Alright for an early lean manufacturing bookOct 26, 2009
This is the revised and updated version of the 1996 edition, however the only change is the edition of a Part IV Epilogue written in 2003.
For one of the first books to explore the concepts of Lean and the Toyota Production System (TPS) it does a fairly good job. I found Parts I - Lean Principals, III - Lean Enterprise, & IV - Epilogue most useful. Part II - From Thinking to Action: The Lean Leap, took up half of the book 170 pages of 340, to explain the lean journey of multiple companies of different sizes and cultures. While I found some of the examples to be useful, all of them were somewhat vague and very drawn out. Had I not needed to read this book for an exam, I likely would have set it down during this part and not picked it up again.
My favorite chapter in the book is Chapter 13: Dreaming about Perfection in Part III. The author takes 5 common activities and "dreams" about how they would operate if they were truly lean. Not just by implementing various tools and techniques but by truly revolutionizing them from the perspective of the customer. It really drove home what breakthrough concepts or paradigm shifts look like.
Overall I would recommend The Toyota Way over this book as a broad overview of what the concept of Lean is.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Lean Thinking is too richSep 08, 2009
The concepts in the book are true and very well established. The problem underlies with business thinking preaching "lean thinking" at every meeting and thus drives the market price of this book up. The book was good but way too expensive.
0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Lean thinkingAug 03, 2009
I ordered six copies of this book for my workplace. I ordered used copies not knowing exactly what condition they would in. I was pleasantly surprised to find them in very good condition when I received them and would have no problem ordering again.
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