A graphic of the Shingo Prize model for principle-centered operational excellence.

A challenge that many organizations face today is twofold: creating a lean system that will give them a competitive advantage, and sustaining that advantage as implementation progresses. The Gold Mine, LEI’s first book of fiction, combines the technical and human aspects of implementing a lean system into a story that readers will find engaging and instructive. Its sequel, The Lean Manager, provides a definitive guide for sustaining operations and fostering a learning culture. The Leader’s Study Guide provides chapter summaries, discussion points, and recommended resources to enhance your understanding of The Gold Mine.

For many companies, the most important problem is not doing lean; it is becoming lean. How can they advance beyond realizing isolated gains from deploying lean tools, to fundamentally changing how they operate, think, and learn? In other words, how can companies learn to go beyond lean turnaround to achieve lean transformation?

The Lean Manager, by lean experts Michael and Freddy Ballé, addresses this critical problem. The sequel to the Ballé’s international bestselling business novel The Gold Mine, The Lean Manager tells the compelling story of plant manager Andrew Ward as he goes through the challenging but rewarding journey to becoming a lean manager. Under the guidance of Phil Jenkinson (whose own lean journey was at the core of The Gold Mine), Ward learns to use a deep understanding of lean tools, as well as a technical know-how of his plant’s operations, to foster a lean attitude that sustains continuous improvement. 

LEI’s e-letter subscribers report that their lean efforts are getting more attention during the recession. The brief online survey was conducted in March 2009.

With single-item orders 80% of the time, adopting single-piece flow and cellular production made sense to management at Landscape Forms, a low-volume, high-mix producer of outdoor furniture in Kalamazoo, MI. Find out how the company continued to spread the lean conversion by taking on the harder challenges of reinventing the production schedule through leveling, implementing lean financial management, and creating culture that embraced change and