Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation [ABRIDGED] [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio Cassette)

by James P. Womack (Author, Reader)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
In the revised and updated edition of Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, authors James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones provide a thoughtful expansion upon their value-based business system based on the Toyota model. Along the way they update their action plan in light of new research and the increasing globalization of manufacturing, and they revisit some of their key case studies (most of which still derive, however, from the automotive, aerospace, and other manufacturing industries).

The core of the lean model remains the same in the new edition. All businesses must define the "value" that they produce as the product that best suits customer needs. The leaders must then identify and clarify the "value stream," the nexus of actions to bring the product through problems solving, information management, and physical transformation tasks. Next, "lean enterprise" lines up suppliers with this value stream. "Flow" traces the product across departments. "Pull" then activates the flow as the business re-orients towards the pull of the customer's needs. Finally, with the company reengineered towards its core value in a flow process, the business re-orients towards "perfection," rooting out all the remaining muda (Japanese for "waste") in the system.

Despite the authors' claims to "actionable principles for creating lasting value in any business during any business conditions," the lean model is not demonstrated with broad applications in the service or retail industries. But those manager's whose needs resonate with those described in the Lean Thinking case studies will find a host of practical guidelines for streamlining their processes and achieving manufacturing efficiencies. --Patrick O'Kelley --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
There's a missionary zeal to this book for corporate managers: it wants to convert companies the world over to the streamlined production process pioneered by Toyota after WWII. Womack and Jones chronicled Toyota's concept of lean production in The Machine That Changed the World, and embarked in 1990 on a tour of North America, Europe and Japan to persuade organizations, managers, employers and investors that mass production was out of date and should be chucked for something better. They formed a network of companies and individuals dedicated to lean production. Network members, whose stories form the basis of the book, gather annually to update procedures and refine theory. Showa Manufacturing, a Japanese maker of radiators and boilers, for instance, pulled itself out of an earnings slump by changing from mass-producing batches of standardized equipment to producing customized small lots. Heavily laden with details, this is for specialists who want to streamline. It makes few references to the larger, global economy. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio; Abridged edition (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671574221
• ISBN-13: 978-0671574222
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,342,380 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

105 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Top-Level Book, Good Explanation of Lean Principles, July 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lean Thinking : Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation (Hardcover)

Lean Thinking has its strengths. The authors do a good job of explaining the principles behind lean manufacturing and show good data from varied case studies to convey the value in implementing lean manufacturing. They make a strong case that these principles can reduce waste and costs, reduce lead times, and improve quality and resource utilization. This book is not a practical guide, however. I found it to be somewhat of a "warm and fuzzy" overview aimed at top execs and business strategists as opposed to plant, production, and manufacturing managers. The details of certain key roadblocks aren't addressed, for example: 1. Across the board firings of managers who oppose lean principles. Not as easy as it sounds. 2. Vastly improving changeover times and rearranging big machinery without a generous budget. 3. Making radical changes on your shop floor despite heavy production demands. 4. Dealing with a union that is not willing to concede the initial layoff without a massive war, despite a company crises. There are many others. One thing that I got a kick out of - when Japanese consultants were called in to implement lean changes in a plant, they began taking machinery apart and moving it themselves. At many plants I've seen, if a foreign consultant were to do that, he'd probably be shot before he made it out of the parking lot. Though the authors are self-admitedly theorists and the book lacks a lot of "nuts and bolts" detail, they do a good job of teaching the principles and laying out the results.

93 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Conceptual Overview of Eliminating Waste in Producing, April 22, 2000

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Lean Thinking : Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation (Hardcover)

Unlike most cost-reduction books, Lean Thinking has a strong conceptual underpinning for thinking about improving your operations. The authors move beyond the narrowest application of the lean manufacturing model (the original Toyota system) to explore key concepts like value (what do the customers want? as opposed to what do they choose from the limited options we give them?), flow (continuous production is faster and more efficient than batch processing), pull (letting immediate demand determine what is produced rather than sales projections), and perfection (thinking through the ideal way to do things, rather than just improving from where you are today somewhat). Providing this conceptual framework makes it easier to understand the benefits of operating a lean enterprise. People who did not understand the message in Direct from Dell would find Lean Thinking to be a useful framework.

One of the strengths of this book is that it is deliberately full of examples of companies which took traditional methods in existing plants and converted them into lean operations. I know of no other set of case histories half as useful on this subject.

The key limitation of this book is that most people new to lean manufacturing would not be able to implement solely using the book as a guide. The conceptual perspective, while being uniquely valuable, leaves the inexperienced person with few guideposts. Some of the key requirements are simply described as "get the knowledge" and so forth. As a follow-up, I suggest that the authors team with those who have done this work and write a hands-on guide. Much more benefit will follow.

If you are interested in understanding how a new business model of how to provide your products and/or services might work and what the benefits might be, Lean Thinking is a good place to start. Most executives and operations managers have never seriously considered going from batch to cell-based production. This will open your eyes to the potential.

Based on my many years of experience with improving business processes, you will actually need to go visit some of the companies cited to fully understand the issues and what must be done. I know that visits to Pratt & Whitney can be arranged and are very insightful. You might try to start with that one.

One area may turn you off. The cited examples moved forward pretty ruthlessly. That may not be your cup of tea. You may be reminded of some of the early reengineering. My own experience is that such changes can be done in a more positive and constructive way. Stay open to that possibility as you read the cases. They basically all use command and control to create more flexibility. You can also use other methods like those encouraged in The Soul at Work and The Living Company to create these kinds of results. Keep that in mind.

I recommend that everyone who uses batch and sequential operation methods read this book. It will open your eyes to great potential to grow faster and more profitably.

73 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great, if you like stories about business., May 19, 2004

By	Greg Stein (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lean Thinking : Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, 2nd Edition Revised (Audio CD)

I'm not sure who the audience is for Lean Thinking. Call me naïve, but I assumed it was written by Womack and Jones to help organizations analyze their business processes and eliminate muda (Japanese for "waste"), thereby improving overall performance. However, after reading almost 250 pages of anecdotal success stories, the chapter entitled "Action Plan," where one would assume resides the punch-line of the text, I was met by the profound advice to "Get the knowledge" by hiring one of the numerous experts in North America, Europe or Japan, and read some of the "vast literature" available on lean techniques. Reminds me of the Steve Martin joke where he tells you how to be a millionaire. "First, get a million dollars."

After reading Lean Thinking, I'm struck by the irony that while the authors recommend removing waste from the manner by which your products are delivered to the end customer, they don't take their own advice. The text could have been distilled from 384 pages down to five or six, since there's no real substantive instruction on how to implement lean principles. Then again, maybe I completely misinterpreted the intent of the authors as to their audience and it really was written for the business historian who enjoys reading about how Pratt & Whitney started in 1855. That must be it, because after I ponder the title, I realize that Lean Thinking is for just that, thinking. What I really wanted was a book entitled Lean Doing.