Jim Womack's eLetters & Columns

Jim Womack’s efforts to spread Lean Thinking throughout the world led him to found the Lean Enterprise Institute. While he was the CEO and Chairman of LEI (Jim is currently the Senior Advisor of LEI), he wrote a very popular series of eletters about lean. These are those letters, please feel free to share them with your colleagues.

2010 Passing the Baton September 28, 2010 The Joy of a Greenfield August 24, 2010 Homicide by Example? July 13, 2010 The Tipping Point? June 10, 2010 Becoming Horizontal in a Vertical World May 18, 2010 The End of the Beginning April 1, 2010 Lean for the Long Term March 4, 2010 Back to Work February 16, 2010 Beyond Toyota January 7, 2010 2007 Respect for People December 20, 2007 Ten Years and Counting October 23, 2007 Kaizen or Rework? August 22, 2007 The Problem of Sustainability May 30, 2007 Creating Lean Healthcare May 3, 2007 Why Toyota Won and How Toyota Can Lose April 4, 2007 More Thinking About Lean Transformation January 16, 2007 2004 A Lean Walk Through History December 7, 2004 Lean Information Management November 5, 2004 Deconstructing the Tower of Babel October 7, 2004 Competition Equals Lean? September 1, 2004 Bad People or a Bad Process? July 28, 2004 Creating Basic Stability May 25, 2004 Standardized Worrying April 26, 2004 The Wonder of Level Pull March 31, 2004 Lean Beyond the Factory March 23, 2004 Adding Cost or Creating Value? March 4, 2004 Why We Are a Nonprofit (And How You Can Benefit) February 3, 2004 The Prospects for Lean January 7, 2004 2001 Shopping for a Sensei December 19, 2001 Lean Alternative to "Spaghetti World" November 28, 2001 10 Lean Steps for Surviving the Recession November 20, 2001 The Human Side of Hard Times October 31, 2001 Action Plan for Hard Times October 23, 2001 Leaner Thinking for Harder Times October 16, 2001 Nonsense about JIT October 4, 2001

2009 On Our Watch December 3, 2009 Making Everyone Whole November 5, 2009 In Search of Value Stream Architects September 3, 2009 The Mind of the Lean Manager July 30, 2009 Sailing a Straight Course in a Time of Variances June 30, 2009 The End of an Era June 2, 2009 Re-purpose Before You Re-structure April 9, 2009 Respect Science, Particularly in a Crisis March 5, 2009 Constancy of Purpose February 11, 2009 Learning to Manage January 22, 2009 2006 What I've Learned About Planning and Execution December 14, 2006 From Lean Tools to Lean Management November 21, 2006 Gross Domestic Product Verses Gross Domestic Waste October 23, 2006 The Lean Way Forward at Ford September 15, 2006 Thinking End to End August 11, 2006 Mura, Muri, Muda? July 6, 2006 Purpose, Process, People June 12, 2006 Fewer Heroes, More Farmers May 12, 2006 Lean Leadership April 4, 2006 A Tale of Two Business Systems February 7, 2006 Just in Time, Just in Case, and Just Plain Wrong January 22, 2006 2003 Is Lean Mean? December 2, 2003 Is Lean Green? November 4, 2003 The Power of a Precise Process October 1, 2003 Dueling Sensei and the Need for a Standard Operating System September 11, 2003 Beach Reading August 12, 2003 Jim Womack on how lean compares with Six Sigma, Re-engineering, TOC, TPM, etc., etc. July 14, 2003 We Have Been (Lean) Thinking May 21, 2003 Lean Thinking for Air Travel May 5, 2003 Here’s to Toyota April 15, 2003 Taking a Value Stream Walk at Firm A March 12, 2003 LEI looks for success stories to share February 26, 2003 Move Your Operations to China? Do some lean math first. January 10, 2003

2008 2008 in Summary: A Large Enough Wave Swamps All Boats December 31, 2008 Mega Mura Bubble Trouble November 13, 2008 It Takes 2 (or more) to A3 October 7, 2008 Manage the Contract or Improve the Value Stream? September 16, 2008 The Worst Form of Muda August 14, 2008 From Staffs Conducting Programs to Line Managers Solving Problems July 17, 2008 Nice Car, Long Journey June 6, 2008 Creating Value or Shifting Wealth? May 1, 2008 The Big Mura and Mean Leanness April 3, 2008 Yokoten Across the World March 6, 2008 The Missing Link February 7, 2008 Cadence January 3, 2008 2005 The Big Opportunity November 7, 2005 Necessary But Not Sufficient October 17, 2005 Lean Publishing and Lean Solutions September 8, 2005 Lean Consumption, Lean Provision, and Lean Solutions August 16, 2005 The Truth Lies in the Lies of Fiction May 31, 2005 The Problem with Creative Work and Creative Management May 10, 2005 The Dramatic Spread of Lean Thinking April 11, 2005 Lean Consumption March 7, 2005 Lean Leadership February 3, 2005 The State of Lean 2005 January 11, 2005 2002 Year-end Message About the State of the Lean Community December 20, 2002 Substituting Money for Value Stream Management November 13, 2002 The “Right Sequence” for Implementing Lean October 11, 2002 What do you need from LEI? August 1, 2002 A Great Time for Lean Thinking June 25, 2002 LEI Expands Global Network June 3, 2002 LEI's indicator that can't lie: Doing the math April 12, 2002 Getting Back to Basics March 19, 2002 LEI’s new tool for seeing the big picture March 1, 2002 LEI's New Indicator That Can't Lie February 22, 2002 An LEI New Year's Resolution: No Wallpaper! January 8, 2002