Going Lean: How the Best Companies Apply Lean Manufacturing Principles to Shatter Uncertainty, Drive Innovation, and Maximize Profits [Hardcover]

Stephen A. Ruffa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2008

"Going Lean" sets aside the notion that efficient operations and powerful innovations are only possible when business is steady and demand is growing. Instead, companies must learn that disruption and loss are the price to be paid to remain competitive. Following the lead of a new breed of companies - Toyota, Wal-Mart, and Southwest Airlines - the new, powerful - yet unexpected mindset is that chaos should be the norm. By using "Lean Dynamics" - based on the now-famous Toyota Production System - success can be the outcome.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In this extremely well-written book… useful resource for those interested in operations management, business policy, and related topics." -- Choice

“Stephen Ruffa’s new book titled, Going Lean, is very timely. In this time of the economic crisis when recession has plagued the world’s economic arena, Going Lean teaches us how to live and adapt with change...This book is a must read.” -- Sixsigma.com

“…unique and important insights into entering and sustaining—forever—a lean journey of waste reduction and continuous improvement…” -- Cutting Tool Engineering

“In GOING LEAN, Stephen A. Ruffa spotlights examples from the automotive, airline, and retail industries, offering potent lessons on how companies drive innovation, promote sustainability and create value in the face of uncertainty. The backbone of the book lies in the well-thumbed ideologies of the Toyota Production System.” -- T & D magazine

"With excellent timing, considering recent events in the global economy, this book demonstrates how companies can use lean principles to help them steer through tough times. Using examples from successful companies that survived crises such as 9/11 and the resulting economic downturn, as well as the oil crisis of 1980s, Ruffa shows how the techniques those companies used can be employed to help weather a crisis." -- Houston Business Journal

“…should be read by manufacturing executives and their staffs…shows how to introduce innovation during downturns, strive for perfection and deliver excellent performance.”

Quality Progress

Book Description

Going Lean sets aside the notion that efficient operations and powerful innovations are only possible when business is steady and demand is growing. Instead, companies must learn that sudden shifts or unpredictable conditions need not undermine their results. Led by a new breed of companies –Toyota, Wal-Mart, and Southwest Airlines—a powerful, yet unexpected mindset is reshaping the rules for business competitiveness. By using Lean Dynamics ™—based on the now-famous Toyota Production System—companies everywhere can thrive in virtually any environment. In Going Lean, readers will learn how to:

• become broadly effective in creating and sustaining value

• set a critical foundation for achieving sustained excellence

• identify sources of lag and create robust value streams that thrive in today’s dynamic conditions

• describe the underlying techniques to maintain steady and predictable flow

• create a system based on “pull,” or external demand that consistently introduces new innovation even during severe downturns

• strive for perfection

• deliver industry-leading returns

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM (June 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081441057X
• ISBN-13: 978-0814410578
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.3 x 9.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #620,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen A. Ruffa is an aerospace engineer, a business researcher, and a Shingo Prize winning author. His distinctive observations on lean dynamics are framed by his unique government-industry study of aerospace producers, his projects demonstrating key underlying principles, and his research of today's leaders across manufacturing and service industries.

Mr. Ruffa spent the first 25 years of his career engaged in activites supporting the Defense Department's dynamic needs--from the design, manufacture, test and repair of cutting-edge aircraft, to implementing major business improvement initiatives. He ultimately led a worldwide manufacturing benchmark study of 17 major aerospace manufacturers, demonstrating how "lean" concepts could break the cycle of escalating costs in aircraft production. His results were praised by the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office, the Aircraft Industries Association, and academia.

Mr. Ruffa conducts research and provides training and consulting in applying lean principles to overcome challenging business conditions through his firm, Lean Dynamics Research, LLC. Learn more at www.leandynamics.net

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lean Dynamics in a Chaotic World July 16, 2008

By Patricia E. Moody CMC

Format:Hardcover

When traditional managers apply traditional methods to chaotic events - Katrina, for example,or steep oil price increases - they get - you guessed it - traditional, disappointing results. Enter Steve Ruffa's approach to lean, as demonstrated by Toyota,Walmart and Southwest Airlines, three notches and two thousand miles above day to day lean operations. Ruffa provides hard answers and clear examples to the questions managers have been struggling with for over 15 years - how to take lean into bigger, crazier, more dangerous environments. Cross a hard aerospace engineer who loves real numbers, with great and flexible lean giants, and what you get is an over-riding lean approach dubbed Lean Dynamics by Shingo Prize winning author Ruffa, that US industries need right now. My only complaint? The title should have been Lean Dynamics.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must have for the Lean Practitioner! July 13, 2008

By Joseph J. Hall

Format:Audio CD

This Audio CD of the Book "Going Lean" by Stephen Ruffa is a must have for the Lean Practitioner or any one in a leadership postion in the 21st Century who wants to lead their team to excellence.

Ruffa does a great analysis and expands on current (2008) global business culture for multinational corporations in current times. Going Lean brings us up to date on earlier publication by Jim Womack, (The Machine that changed the World, Lean Thinking) and Liker's (The Toyota Way). Ruffa also gives credit and supports the early Lean Pioneers (Henry Ford, Ono, Deming, Peter Drucker and more experts within the recent age of digitalization and globalization.

A good reference source for Business school students at the undergraduate and Graduate School Level.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read January 12, 2009

By David J. Rizzardo

Format:Kindle Edition

Going Lean is a must read for both the Lean veterans and those just initiating their Lean journeys. Again, Ruffa successfully provides an excellent book that doesn't just fall into the "same as" type of Lean category. By providing data on organizations across diverse sectors, he shows the far reaching applicability of Lean principles. His "value curve" clearly depicts the separation of the Lean versus the not-quite-so Lean organizations, and Ruffa's work, as usual, is backed by solid research. I highly recommend this book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars How to use lean dynamics to thrive in chaotic conditions September 1, 2009

By Rolf Dobelli HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

People and organizations too often find that the very things they did to prepare for emergencies end up making their problems worse. Stephen A. Ruffa shows you how to use the "lean dynamics" approach to track "lag" within your operations and eliminate it before it harms your competitiveness and makes you less adaptable in a crisis. He explains how to determine where lag is hiding and how to root it out. He offers a solid plan for launching lean dynamics and getting everyone on board. Ruffa also explains how to measure and maximize value within the lean dynamics system, and tells you how to stay ahead of the "value curve." Ruffa writes clearly and illustrates his principles by comparing Toyota and the Detroit automakers, Wal-Mart and Kmart, and Southwest and other major airlines. getAbstract recommends his book to anyone interested in learning about a new approach to business operations.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Wow - what a pile of clear thought April 13, 2009

By Vitek Filip

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I believe this book offers a great pile of facts on why some of the production factories go terribly off the road recently.

Thumbs up for the style, precise and covering structure of thought and usage of analogies (which are both entertaining and hitting the bull-eye).

The only bit that takes it from 5 stars super-book is the length of the text. Not too many readers would be patient to go through. I understand that author's mission was to walk the reader through the whole argument and build the castle brick by brick. That is all fine, but sometimes the comments on how bad the actual environment is get repeated and obsolete.
You can slap the actual operational setting into the face at the start very hard with some bolder statements and then promise to answer why the slap was actually well deserved in the text.

And oh yes you can prove the slap with the text in this book!!!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not really a recommended lean book March 21, 2012

By Bas Vodde

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I picked up "Going Lean" without any recommendation as "just another Lean book." I usually enjoy reading Lean books and already consumed quite a few of them. I sort-of struggled through "Going Lean" and it wouldn't be on my list of Lean books to recommend. I felt it is shallow, repetitive and even fairly traditional (rather than Lean :P).

Going Lean consists of 3 parts each containing 4 chapters.

Part 1 is called "From Crisis to Excellence." This is sort-of an introduction part where the author describes the problems with the current system of management and how this will need to change. He dives into history to look at Ford and Toyota and how Ford created a huge innovation but then lost their competitive edge because of their disability to compete based on changes. Chapter 3 introduces one of the key concepts of the book called "value curve" which basically describes that traditionally businesses are optimized towards a certain amount of production (economy of scale) and lean companies are optimized towards a more linear cost/value ration (which other authors might call "economy of flow"). Also, this part of the book introduces a term the author seems to have invented called "lean dynamics" which is the the authors flavor of lean. I found it unneeded to introduce another flavor of Lean and was slightly annoyed by this.

Part 2 is called "The Foundational Element" which suggests fairly abstract things that would need to be in place in order to implement "lean dynamics". It starts with a focus on measurement and it especially criticizes internal measurements and promotes more external measurements of value. It talks about the "bullwhip" effect and how you shouldn't optimize from your company perspective but throughout the whole value stream.... It covers leveling the variation by grouping different products into "product groups" (which the author stressed a lot) and explains how organizations ought to move from push production to lean pull productions.

Part 3 is called "Implementing Lean Dynamics" which basically describes all the traditional top-down driven change management concepts for implementing a "Lean Dynamics Program" even though some of the Lean proponents lessons from Toyota have always been that Lean isn't a Program but a result of a problem-solving culture. Here, I personally felt very disappointed with the authors writing as it focused very little on the people and the culture of an organization and much more on management and measurement and traditional aspects of organizations. The last chapter in this part covers several pitfalls for your lean dynamics transformation program.

I didn't really enjoy the book. The writing felt like a lot of marketing and selling speech. The common examples used (Walmart, Toyota, Southwest) have been used again and again. Some other examples were interesting though (Hibbett, Garrity Tool company). I was annoyed by the amount of repetition and the shallow-ness of the book. Also, the traditional focus on how to manage change projects was... well... not interesting. All in all, I wouldn't suggest to read this book about Lean but instead pick up the traditional Womack Jones books such as Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated and Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together or the Liker Toyota books such as The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer or Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way. For more original insight on Toyota, I'd look for Ohno and stories such as Taiichi Ohno's Workplace Management and The Birth of Lean. Even as an overview to Lean, I don't think this is a book that you ought to pick up, especially as the author cherry-picks lean concepts and adds his own favorites (e.g. value curves).

All that said, this book wasn't bad either. It didn't contains much things that were wrong and the author did share some of his own experiences which added some new value and insights. Therefore, I've been thinking about whether it ought to be a 2 or a 3 star rating and decided to stick with 2 stars. Leave this and look for other Lean books, unless you read all the others already (but then this one doesn't provide much new insights) Read more ›