| | |  | Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) | Home » » » » The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround | | | | | | | Description: | | The Gold Mine: a Novel of Lean Turnaround deftly weaves together the technical and human pieces of implementing lean manufacturing in an engaging story that readers will find both compelling and instructive. Authors Freddy and Michael Ballé have produced the first integrated and systematic approach to a set of ideas that have maximized value and minimized waste throughout the world. At the heart of the Gold Mine is Bob Woods, a curmudgeonly sensei coaxed out of retirement by his son Mike to help boyhood friend Phil Jenkinson save his struggling company. Despite terrific products and a backlog of orders, Phil’s company cannot generate enough cash from its operations to pay its bills. And so Mike enlists Bob to help his pal fix this crisis. "You’re trying to deal with your mess as if it was a technical problem," Bob tells Phil. "Move this machine here, change this design there, which it is to some extent, but … it’s all about people. You have a leadership problem not just a production or business problem." As Phil begins to tackle the key challenges necessary to improve his company’s operations, he comes to understand the deeper points of lean. Readers will also draw powerful insights from his journey. The Gold Mine presents all the key lean principles, ranging from well-known ideas such as pull and flow, to lesser-known yet equally important principles such as jidoka and heijunka. The book also reveals lean as a system—using a realistic story to show how the principles are interrelated and how they lead to useful tools such as kanban or 5S. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Freddy Balle | | Paperback:
| 360 pages | | Publisher:
| Lean Enterprises Inst Inc | | Publication Date:
| May 30, 2005 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 0974322563 | | Package Length:
| 8.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.98 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.18 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.59 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 15 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
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 Introduces the right concepts at the right time.May 06, 2010
An enjoyable introduction of the most basic - and most powerful - Lean concepts, applied in a fictional factory. In many ways The Gold Mine replaces The Goal, by Eliyahu Goldratt, by using a richer set of observations about the plant. The plot involves a retired Lean sensei who reluctantly helps a friend bring the plant back to profitability by introducing the right concept at the right time - just as it should be done in a real plant.
If you are going to give one book to use as an introduction to Lean prior to embarking on a Lean Manufacturing program, this is it.
Scott Kisling
Visit [...] for more information about Lean, especially Lean Repair.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 The Goal vs The Gold MineJun 09, 2009
Terrific that we are getting "how to" business books on issues of manufacturing. Whether it was Deming and Juran or now, with The Gold Mine, the Toyota method, the ideas are spot on and worthy of discussion and trying.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 The Goal IIFeb 01, 2009
This book is really like a sequel to Goldratt's book "The Goal". Again the story takes place in a simplified factory setting, producing approximately six products. This time a factory is being introduced to the Lean production method. The book's strong point is its demonstration of how one starts implementing a Lean factory by starting at the shipping dock and working back through the production sequences looking for bottlenecks. The book also has its share of fluff, and seemingly pointless conversations that I suppose the author inserted in an effort to stop eyeballs from glazing over. The readers are warned of this by the subtitle "a novel of lean turnaround." Readers of this genre are once again tortured by the comparison of lowering inventory to a rowboat plying low water among rocks. A few more Japanese buzzwords are also introduced in this book to broaden the reader's horizons. The book does a good job portraying the human resistance to change that an intro to Lean will produce. What does raise this book's rating a notch is the last chapter. entitled "Kaizen Forever," where the lessons learned are reviewed. The conclusions here and a simple summation boils down to a "know thy factory", and "know thy processes" made this book a worthwhile read.
Variations in product processes and factory environments will still leave most readers saying the practices shown in this book can not be applied to their particular situation, but the lessons of the last chapter are applicable everywhere.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
The Goldmine vs The Goal.Jan 11, 2009
I guess the parallel with the book 'The Goal' by Goldratt, is no accident and as such is being asked to be compared. It is very similar in format, a novel style portrayal of a company trying to get back to profitability.
In the case of 'The Goal' they use a framework based on a 'Theory of Constraints' and the 'Goldmine' illustrates Lean Manufacturing Principles.
In terms of the story line, the goldmine book is a little weak because I never really get to know the characters or feel any concern or empathy for them. In these terms the 'Goal' wins hands down.
In terms of a practical and effective theory of management i.e. Lean Production then the Gold mine is far superior. We even get to see some practical examples worked out within the work environment context, its a sort of case study/documentary.
In conclusion, if you want a good story and poor theory then the Goal is a better choice. But remember, you can always buy a good novel instead.
If like me you want something that works in practice then the Goldmine is a clear winner.
A true gold mine, you return to dig more here and there...Aug 10, 2008
This book is a very good introduction to "lean manufacturing". Being written as a novel it resembles "The goal". As a novel I liked the goal better, it used a lot of good metaphors and it was a "breakthrough" in the sense that it was the first of the type. He also introduced concepts as "throughput" and theory of constraints in an understandable way.
The gold mine copies the style but on the other hand goes deeper into the subject. It is very good at making emphasis at what matters most. The concepts stay in your mind and keep "going round" in your head for some time. There is so much information in the dialogues of this book, that you have to re-read parts of it and think more deeply about what it is saying. This is the true gold mine, you keep returning to it to dig some more here and there.
I read this book almost at the same time than "Lean Thinking" by James Womack and although the principles they mention are the same, the emphasis on each of them is somewhat different. I somehow find the emphasis in this book more appealing and far reaching. On the other hand, "Lean thinking" is better as an advertising campaign to gain adepts for the lean-cause, more promotional writing, not so thoughtful as this one.
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