Example A3: Acme Stamping – Project Status Review (from Managing to Learn)

Art is the author of the LEI workbook Creating Level Pull: a lean production-system improvement guide for production control, operations, and engineering professionals, which received a 2005 Shingo Research Award. He was inducted into the Shingo Prize Academy in 2006. Art learned about lean manufacturing while living, studying, and working in Japan for 10 years as one of the first foreign nationals to work for Toyota. He spent the majority of his Toyota career helping the company transfer its production, engineering, and management systems to facilities around the world. After leaving Toyota, Art became director of lean production operations at Donnelly Corp., (now part of Magna Inc.), a tier one automotive supplier with more than 15 plants in North America and Europe. Art subsequently joined McKinsey & Company, where he was the firm’s leading expert in lean manufacturing. He currently aids companies implementing lean through Art of Lean.

Durward K. Sobek II is a Professor in Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at Montana State University. He holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an A.B. degree in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College. 

Dr. Sobek has been researching lean product development and lean healthcare for nearly two decades, focusing on how organizations can increase their performance capacity through the application of lean principles.  He is co-founder of the not-for-profit Lean Product and Process Development Exchange, Inc. whose mission is to share and expand the body of knowledge around lean product and process development.  He is a frequent presenter and has published numerous articles in publications such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management.  He is co-author of Lean Product and Process Development, 2nd edition; and is co-author of the Shingo Prize-winning book Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota’s PDCA Management System.