Our Mission: Advance lean thinking throughout the world

Explore LEI

Free Lean Webinar

On the Mend: a Webinar About Lean Culture Change

Join two veterans of ThedaCare's 8-year transformation, John Toussaint, MD, and Roger Gerard, Ph.D, on September 13 for a free webinar on culture change and how to engage people.

Get the details and register >

New Supply Chain Workbook:
Building a Lean Fulfillment Stream

Building a Lean Fulfillment Stream

41 illustrations, charts, and value-stream maps give you a step-by-step method to create maximum value for customers at minimum total costs.

Get the book >

Lean Healthcare

How Empowerment Leads to Hospital Efficiency

William Considine, CEO of Akron Children's Hospital, a member of the Healthcare Value Leaders Network, talks at length about getting people engaged and on-board with lean.

Read the story >

HealthcareValueLeaders.org >

Lean Education

Midwest Lineup of Workshops is One of the Year's Biggest & Deepest

11 sessions in Chicago Sept. 14-16 will cover lean for manufacturing, services, IT, product development, culture change, and more.

Get the complete program >

Jim Womack, LEI Founder,
to Step Down as CEO

Will Be Succeeded by Senior Advisor John Shook

Womack, who led the MIT research team that coined the term "lean," will remain involved with LEI and the Lean Community.

See the closing of Jim's e-letter to the Lean Community >

Read the full news release >

Share your thoughts >

Lean Events

Lean Summit - Save the Date

Presentations by leading lean practitioners are hallmarks of the annual Lean Transformation Summit, set for Dallas, March 9-10, 2011.

Join the Summit email list >

[ Close ]

Fix it Again

Most managers and executives who say their companies are on a lean journey have no problem with the idea that improvement is continous. But too many companies, after an initial lean effort, stop or start to backslide to the old ways of working.

That's a shame. It really is possible to make improvements indefinitely to the same value stream — reducing mistakes, cost, space, time, human effort — to deliver more value to customers. Sometimes the improvement steps are radical. Sometimes they are incremental. The key is to keep taking the next step. Most times you will not need lots of money to improve specific activities. But you will need to learn how to see—to see the value stream, to see how value flows, and to see value being pulled by customers. You will also need policy deployment to decide which forms of waste to attack first.

Lean Thinker