Media Contact
Chet Marchwinski
Communications Director
Phone: 617 871-2930 (direct); 617 871-2900
cmarchwinski@lean.org

• Executives Urged to Do “Lean Math” to Calculate the True Cost of Offshoring
  Keynoting the annual conference of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, management expert James Womack, Ph.D., said senior managers should use “lean math” to calculate the true total cost of offshoring. "Lean math" and  groundbreaking ideas for implementing lean principles in retail, air travel, and healthcare are explained in Lean Solutions, co-authored by Womack and Dan Jones.
• Ipbüken: Turkey Should Adopt Lean Methods and Focus on Exports
  A conference organized by the Lean Institute Turkey (Yalin Enstitu Dernegi), an affiliate of the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute, featured presentations by Toyota Engineering Corporation (TEC) CEO Toshio Horikiri and executives from Turkey's leading companies, including Orhan Holding, Uzel Machine Industry, Hugo Boss Textile, May Seed Company, TOFA Inc., and Goodyear Tire Company. All addressed successful lean applications in Turkey. The first day of the conference addressed issues relevant to the textile, agriculture and automotive sectors. The second day concentrated on applying lean principles to healthcare. "Considering the significance of the healthcare system and its problems in Turkey, the conference is expected to help this sector," said Institute Founder Yalcin Ipbuken. (Published by Today's Zaman, Dec. 3, 2007.)
• From Lean Tools to Lean Management
  LEI Founder and Chairman James Womack describes three elements for moving companies beyond the application of lean tools, such as kaizen events, to lean management, based on the scientific approach of plan, do, check, act. Lean management is the successor to the previously dominant mass production approach to management as perfected by Alfred Sloan at General Motors in the 1920s. Now, Womack says, he sees signs that senior managers are beginning to realize that they need to think more about lean management.
• Machine That Changed the World Named to Executive Reading List in The New York Times
  The classic management book The Machine That Changed the World, which was recently reissued in paperback, has been named to an executive reading list compiled by The New York Times.
• Just in Time, Just in Case, and Just Plain Wrong
  Do lean just-in-time (JIT) inventories make supply chains more vulnerable in a world worried about disruptions from pandemics? Jim Womack sets the record straight in Just in Time, Just in Case, and Just Plain Wrong.
• The Lean Way Forward at Ford
  Lean Enterprise Institute Chairman and Founder, James Womack offers his views on the recent events at Ford.
• Nonsense About JIT
  Do lean just-in-time (JIT) inventories make supply chains more vulnerable in a world worried about disruptions from terrorism? Read Jim Womack's insights in Nonsense About JIT.
• Move Your Operations to China? Do Some Lean Math First
  A hard look at the true cost of moving operations out of high-wage countries often shows that relocation is not the first line of defense, notes LEI Founder and President James Womack. Rather, as "lean math" demonstrates, it's to get truly serious about a lean transformation through the entire value stream for the product in question.
• Why Tesco is Winning: Lean Provision, based on Lean Production Principles, Helps Retailer Tesco Best Wal-Mart
  
  Learn more about how the principles of lean production have been extended to the process of consumption by British retailer Tesco, which is competing successfully against Wal-Mart in Europe and Asia and plans to open small stores on the U.S. West coast. (In-depth: read a book excerpt about Tesco's lean approach to retail; then read an excerpt about how lean production principles are being extended through the entire provision process and through consumption.Get an overview of lean consumption here.)
• Why Toyota Won
  GM and Ford don't need new car models; they need a new business model, says LEI President Jim Womack in this Wall Streeet Journal op ed.
• Mr. Ford's Wrong Turn
  Read Jim Womack's rebuttal in The Washington Post to Bill Ford's claim that automakers need government help.
• A Tale of Two Business Systems
  
  At its root, the crisis buffeting Ford and GM is not due to too many retirees, too-high healthcare costs, or too-high energy prices. The root cause of the crisis is a clash between two very different business systems, and the better system is winning, according to James Womack, president and founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute.
• Work Force 2006 Conference: Lean Thinking Works Everywhere!
  
  Jim Womack's keynote address at the Jan. 10 Work Force Summit in Jacksonville, FL, a regional conference on workforce trends.
• Lean Consumption
  
  "Lean Consumption," the lead article in the March issue of the Harvard Business Review, is “a landmark synthesis of ideas whose implications haven’t been fully understood and a breakthrough to new territory,” according to Editor Tom Stewart. In this letter to the Lean Community, co-author Jim Womack, president and founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute, outlines the concepts in the article, which previews the book on the same subject that will be printed in the fall of 2005. Get a copy of the HBR Lean Consumption article.
• What Is the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI)?
  Read an overview of the Lean Enterprise Institute's background, mission, products, and services.
• What Is Lean Thinking?
  Lean Thinking is the title of a landmark book by James Womack and Daniel Jones that explains the set of ideas known as lean thinking or lean production. The book explains the thought process underpinning a complete lean system, gives examples of successful lean transformations, and provides an Action Plan for implementation.
• Capsule Definitions of Key Lean Concepts
  Succinct summaries of some critical lean concepts.
• Example of a current-state map
  A current-state map shows the path of a product or service from order to delivery to determine the current conditions. (Source: Learning to See, Lean Enterprise Institute, 1999.)
• Example of a future-state map
  A future-state map deploys the opportunities for improvement identified in the current-state map to achieve a higher level of performance.(Source: Learning to See, Lean Enterprise Institute, 1999.)
• Lean Account Summit Presentation with Updated Slides
  Here is James Womack's presentation at the Lean Accounting Summit with updated slides.

• 06/20/08 Lean Enterprise Institute Launches Lean Management Timeline and Book with Video
  Two new free resources -- a timeline of key ideas that led to the modern system of lean management and an online e-book of first-person testimony about how lean management principles changed people's lives -- now are available at lean.org.
• 06/19/08 New Lean Lexicon Covers Strategic Planning, Product Development, Supply Streams
  The 4th edition of the Lean Lexicon, published by the Lean Enterprise Institute, (LEI), has new terms and illustrations about how lean business principles pertain to strategic planning, supply streams, and product development.
• 03/11/08 14 Organizations Create Lean Global Network to Advance Lean Thinking Worldwide
  Fourteen nonprofit or nongovernmental organizations on five continents have formed the Lean Global Network (LGN), a network committed to advancing worldwide a set of ideas known as lean management, derived from practices pioneered by Toyota.
• 03/11/08 Womack Advances Lean Management as Successor to Traditional Management
  Management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., who led the MIT research team that coined the term lean, explains that the lean enterprise movement is evolving beyond the current tool age focused on implementing individual methods such as value-stream mapping, kaizen, kanban, etc., to a new age focused on implementing lean management, where the key for executives is to answer the fundamental questions of Purpose, Process, People.
• 03/10/08 2 Prize-Winning Books from LEI Advance Lean Management Beyond the Shop Floor
  Two Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) books that advance the application of lean management principles beyond the shop floor to strategy and product development won 2008 Shingo Research Prizes. Getting the Right Things Done: a leader's guide to planning and execution by Pascal Dennis and Lean Product and Process Development by the late Allen Ward received prizes at the 20th Annual Shingo Prize Conference.
 
• 11/12/07 LEI Board Member Bruce Henderson Dies at 58
  The Lean Community mourns the death of Bruce Henderson,an executive who led lean management conversions, co-author of Lean Transformations, and a founding board member of the Lean Enterprise Institute.
• 08/13/07 LEI's 10th Anniversary Opinion Survey: Cost Cutting Mistakenly Seen as Lean Production’s Biggest Benefit
  The nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute, which marked its 10th anniversary in September 2007, asked managers and executives to identify the biggest benefit of lean production during the past 10 years. Founder and Chairman James Womack warned that companies were being short-sighted by focusing heavily on cost cutting. Lean's main benefit is growth, not simply cost cutting.
• 07/19/07 2007 Opinion Survey Finds Middle Management Resistance Is Main Obstacle to Lean
  Middle management resistance became the top obstacle, replacing "backsliding to the old ways of working" in the Lean Enterprise Institute's annual customer survey.
• 09/07/07 Training Kit Applies Lean Principles to Service and Administrative Processes
  "Mapping to See" is the name of a comprehensive training kit for planning and implementing value-stream improvement projects in service, professional, and administrative processes, using value-stream mapping.
• 06/22/07 Pioneer of Lean Product Development Delivers Original Insights in New Book
  Lean Product and Process Development  by the late Allen Ward, who pioneered research into lean product development and how Toyota practiced it, reveals his passion as well as his insight about how to create and sustain a lean development system.Ward’s core thesis is that the very aim of the product development process is to create profitable operational value streams , and further, that creating useable knowledge is the key to doing so predictably, efficiently, and effectively.
• 04/06/07 Toyota’s Lean Business System Is The Machine That Changed the World
  The "machine" in The Machine That Changed the World is Toyota's revolutionary business system, LEI Founder and Chariman James Womack explained in a New York Times Magazine cover story.
• 04/06/07 The Machine That Changed the World Re-Issued
  The classic lean book The Machine That Changed the World, which was the first to describe the Toyota Production System as a complete business system and the successor to traditional management, has been re-issued in paperback with a new Foreword and Afterword that updates the lean story.
• 04/06/07 New Hybrid Book Takes a “Novel” Approach to Strategy Deployment
  Getting the Right Things Done: a leaders guide to planning and execution, explains the nuts and bolts of applying strategy deployment, called hoshin kanri at Toyota, an important tools for aligning improvement activities with business goals.
 
• 09/11/06 LEI Publishes Third Edition of the Lean Lexicon
  The Lean Enterprise Institute publishes the third edition of its Lean Lexicon glossary, based on input from customers about what words and terms they wanted to see included.
• 03/10/06 Two Books by Lean Enterprise Institute Authors Receive Shingo Prizes for 2006
  
  Lean Solutions by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, and The Gold Mine by Freddy Ballé and Michael Ballé, won 2006 Shingo Research Prizes.
• 06/08/06 Lean Provision Is Tesco’s Secret Weapon in Battle with Wal-Mart
  A key to the success of British retailer Tesco in fending off rival Wal-Mart is a loyalty card program, according to a page-one Wall Street Journal story. But the key to the loyalty card program is a lean provision system. (See Background Articles above for a book excerpt on this subject.)
• 01/17/06 Lean Education Academic Network (LEAN) Advances Lean Thinking in Universities and Colleges
  Professors dedicated to making lean thinking principles part of the curiculum at colleges and universities team up with the Lean Enterprise Institute to launch LEAN -- the Lean Education Academic Network.
• 11/01/06 2006 Opinion Survey Identifies “Backsliding” as Top Obstacle to Lean Implementation
  Backsliding or gradually slipping back to the previous methods of working is blocking the steady progress of lean conversions, according to a Lean Enterprise Institute customer survey.
 
• 09/30/05 Lean Solutions
  Consumption should be easier and more satisfying due to better, cheaper products.  Instead, it requires growing time and hassle to get all of our goods and services to work properly and work together. The reason is that companies don't view consumption as a process. In this groundbreaking book, Womack and Jones propose a radical new leap:  extend the lean philosophy to consumption.
• 09/01/05 2005 Opinion Survey Cites Top Trends: Value-Stream Mapping and Lean With 6 Sigma
  
  Value-stream mapping and combining lean manufacturing with six sigma were virtually tied as the biggest industry trends, according to a  2005 customer survey by the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI).
• 06/15/05 The Gold Mine cover art
  
  Cover for The Gold Mine lean novel at 600 dpi
• 06/01/05 The Gold Mine, a New Business Novel, Brings Key Lean Thinking Tools to Life
  The Gold Mine: a Novel of Lean Turnaround presents all the key lean principles and an implementation process as a compelling story about the transformation of a company and a manager.
• 06/01/05 Q and A With the Authors of The Gold Mine, a Business Novel About Lean Production
  Authors Freddy and Michael Ballé share insights into the book's characters and how to combine the human and technical elements when implementing a lean production system. (For the complete interview, visit the Library section.)
• 04/29/05 Workbooks on Lean Material Handling and Pull Production Receive Shingo Prizes
  Two additional workbooks in LEI's toolkit, Making Materials Flow and Creating Level Pull, have received Shingo Prizes. Making Materials Flow explains how to create a lean material-handling system for flowing purchased parts and information to and from work cells in a plant. Creating Level Pull explains how to implement a level and pull-based scheduling system across all value streams within an entire facility.
 
• 10/06/04 Can-ban or Kahn-bahn? New Lean Lexicon Answers This and Much More
  The second edition of the Lean Lexicon, an illustrated glossary of key lean manufacturing terms, features new and expanded definitions and -- by popular request -- a simple pronunciation guide to Japanese terms.
• 04/01/04 New Workbook Tackles Lean Production Control and System Kaizen
  The Creating Level Pull workbook explains the step-by-step process of implementing a lean production control system that levels demand and ties together the flows of information and materials supporting every product family in a facility.
• 02/18/04 2004 Customer Survey Detects Solid Gains and Common Obstacles
  Nearly three-quarters of lean production efforts are reporting solid progress and the national economy appears to be benefiting, according to the first annual customer survey compiled by the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI).
• 02/04/04 Charts for 2004 Customer Survey
  The Lean Community reported solid gains as well as common obstacles in the first annual customer survey by LEI. It was based on a survey of the Lean Community and inventory turns calculated from data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.
 
• 10/02/03 New Workbook Explains How to Create a Material-Handling System for Lean Production
  The Making Materials Flow workbook uses plain language and illustrations to explain how to create, sustain, and improve a lean material-handling system for purchased parts.
• 06/13/03 New Edition of Lean Thinking Shows Lean Companies Sailing Through Economic Turmoil as Entire Economy Embraces Lean Concepts
  In the new and expanded 2d edition of their landmark book Lean Thinking  (The Free Press), authors Daniel Jones and James Womack revisit the original companies they studied, discovering that a continuing application of lean thinking principles helped the companies shake off the triple blows of the stock market meltdown, the recession, and global chaos.

• 02/04/03 2003 Customer Survey Reveals Biggest Hurdles to Implementing Lean Business Systems
  Managers trying to make the lean leap say they stumble over a lack of implementation know-how and backsliding to the old ways of working.
• 01/17/03 New Graphical Glossary from LEI Defines Lean Terms
  The Lean Lexicon: A Graphical Glossary For Lean Thinkers illuminates key lean terms from A3 Report to Yamazumi Board.
 
• 02/28/02 Seeing the Whole, a New Workbook from Dan Jones and Jim Womack, Introduces New Tool for Dramatic Value Stream Improvement
  Using an extended value-stream map, a new breakthrough tool, Daniel T. Jones and James P. Womack, demonstrate how to dramatically improve supply chains from supplier through final customer.
• 08/22/02 Lean Enterprise Institute Publishes Creating Continuous Flow, a New Workbook To Help Companies Implement Flow By Focusing on The Pacemaker Process
  Creating Continuous Flow  helps managers, engineers, and production associates take the next logical step after value-stream mapping by implementing continuous flow at the pacemaker process, which sets the production rhythm for the plant or value stream
• 12/13/02 Lean Enterprise Institute Organizes Conference to Help Manufacturers Quickly Cut Waste to Unlock Cash
  The “Leaner Thinking for Harder Times" conference provides hands-on workshops to help manufacturers cut excess inventories, improve processes, and shorten the time from orders to cash during the recession and sluggish recovery.