Cambridge, Mass., March 15, 2012 – The nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), a thought-leading creator of original research, books, training, and events that support companies transitioning to lean management, today announced it has moved to better space in order to support a growing, increasingly diverse Lean Community.
LEI’s new address is 215 First St., Suite 300, Cambridge, MA, 02142. All other contact information, including email addresses, telephone and fax numbers, remain the same.
“We’re just a couple blocks from our old office in Kendall Square because we wanted to stay connected to the world’s greatest, most diverse center of innovation, research, education, and entrepreneurship,” said CEO John Shook.
“As we celebrate our 15th anniversary this year, our new, open office environment will help us collaborate more effectively to better fulfill our mission of advancing lean thinking in every endeavor, everywhere,” Shook said.
LEI offers learning and other support resources to managers, engineers, executives or any individual wishing to learn and apply lean practice.
Resources to Promote Lean Practice
Shook said the new office, with additional training space, is better-equipped to provide a diverse set of educational programs. This year LEI will run more of its popular public workshops as well as expand in-company offerings that address the technical and social aspects of lean transformations in manufacturing and service companies.
Shook also announced that Danielle Blais has joined LEI as education manager, overseeing a new effort to meet growing customer demand for on-site customized education and training.
In November, Mark Reich, former general manager of the Toyota Production System Support Center, joined LEI as director of strategy and operations — a new post — to conduct research and support co-learning collaborations with companies pursuing lean transformations.
Shook said LEI is applying lean principles to its new office to improve its key business processes. LEI will share its lean office improvements with the Lean Community.
What is Lean?
The terms lean manufacturing, lean production, lean enterprise or lean management refer to a complete business system for organizing and managing product development, operations, suppliers, customer relations, and the overall enterprise. Lean organizations require less capital, material, space, time, or human effort to produce products and services with fewer defects to precise customer desires, compared with traditional management and operating systems. In short, lean represents a holistic, revolutionary way of thinking about organizing work to better use human talent to provide needed value with less waste.
LEI’s offers a weekly newsletter with lean management news and resources such as case studies, webinars, interviews with executives on lean leadership, and archives of articles by lean management thought leaders such as Shook and Jim Womack, LEI founder.
Lean Enterprise Institute
Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc., was founded in 1997 by management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., as a nonprofit research, education, publishing, and conference company with a mission to advance lean thinking around the world. We teach courses, hold management seminars, write and publish books and workbooks, participate in co-learning projects with organizations, and organize public and private conferences. We use the surplus revenues from these activities to conduct research projects and support other lean initiatives such as the Lean Education Academic Network, Lean Global Network, and the Healthcare Value Network. Lean Enterprise Institute and the leaper image are registered trademarks of Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc.
Media: Chet Marchwinski, cmarchwinski@lean.org , 617-871-2930