July 8, 2008

Dear Lean Thinker,

We're delighted that you have visited our web site and I would like to extend to you my personal welcome.

We have a very simple objective at LEI. We try to describe in plain language the fundamental ideas of lean thinking. We have derived these from Toyota, which derived many of them in turn from Henry Ford's breakthroughs at Highland Park early in the 20th Century.

We diffuse these ideas through books and workbooks (which you can obtain in the Store), through workshops and management seminars (which you can learn more about from our Education value stream), and through Summit Conferences.  We use the surplus revenues from these activities to conduct research projects and to support other lean initiatives such as the Lean Education Academic Network (www.teachinglean.org ) and the Lean Global Network (www.leanglobal.org ).

The Community and Library sections of this web site are where you’ll find an impressive body of free information including Success Stories about actual lean conversions, stories written by your peers about their transformations, presentations, excerpts from our books, webinars, executive interviews, videos, selected articles from the business media, Forums for service and manufacturing industries, and an archive of my e-letters to the Lean Community.

You can sign up to get my monthly e-letter and to be informed when new content is posted when you register, which I invite you to do now. I also invite you to participate in the Lean Community where we hope to create value and eliminate waste together in the years ahead.

Welcome to the Lean Community, and thank you for your continued support!

Best Regards,
Jim Womack
Founder and Chairman
Lean Enterprise Institute