Lean Thinking [Paperback]

James P Womack (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 2003

The authors claim to show how lean thinking with a new definition of value can breathe life into a company or economic activity, doubling productivity and sales whilst stabilizing employment, by providing a step by step plan based on in depth studies of fifty lean companies around the world.

Editorial Reviews

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North America, Europe and Japan to persuade organizations, managers, employers and investors that mass production was out of date and should be chucked for something better.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.

From Booklist

In The Machine That Changed the World (1990), Womack and Jones, along with Daniel Roos, lauded the manufacturing technique used by Japanese automakers, known as "lean production" and also as the Toyota Production System. Lately, though, some critics have argued that "lean production" has been used as simply an excuse for downsizing, and recent books, such as David Gordon's Fat and Mean (1996), have questioned whether corporate trimming has been effective at all. Undaunted, Womack and Jones argue their case anew. They now move beyond "lean production" to propose "the lean enterprise" and describe the successes at 25 U.S., Japanese, and German companies that have effectively implemented the "lean principles" of value (as defined by the customer), value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. Because their earlier book has sold well, this follow-up could generate interest. David Rouse --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (July 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743231643
• ISBN-13: 978-0743231640
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #518,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

120 of 124 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.

101 of 105 people found the following review helpful:

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

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 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.

42 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Ideas, But Now How?, November 13, 2001

By 

bassass (Halifax and Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews

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

Lean Thinking does an excellent job of detailing what is wrong with the standard business processes in North America and pretty much the rest of the world. The authors also do a very good job of introducing (I hadn't yet read The Machine that Changed the World) and explaining their ideas to make clear that there is a much better way available to companies.
I have long been a big believer that all employees are valuable resources that are all to often wasted due to 'right sizing' efforts to achieve immediate monetary targets. Lean Thinking has total employee involvement as a basic pillar of the theory.
The business examples they provide are bulletproof, and definitely make the case that what they suggest can be done.
The problems I had with the book had to do with credibly backing up many of the claims the authors make, like " quality always zooms when flow and pull thinking are put in place together." Is there any hard evidence to back up this assertion? No in the book. The authors make many guarantees about eye-popping improvements their theory will bring if it is implemented correctly.
Implementation is where I have the biggest problem with this book. Womack and Jones certainly do a good job of explaining their theory and backing it up with impeccable examples, but it all adds up to another book in which the authors tell you what you HAVE to do, but not how to do it. It is my opinion that made yet another contribution to the Knowing-Doing Gap (Pfeffer and Sutton, HBS Press 2000). The great ideas contained in the book lack any real, concrete action steps for successful implementation and so will rarely be successfully implemented.
It is similar to all of the talk about innovation. Everyone knows that it is important to do it, but few actually do it because they don't know how. It's not as simple as snapping your fingers. How do you actually go about involving all of your employees? I myself would involve the Simplex process (1995, The Power of Innovation, M.S. Basadur), but that's just me. The same logic applies to almost every section of the last third of the book. I kept saying to myself, "Wow, that's easier said than done."
The book leaves it to the reader to essentially make it up for themselves to make lean thinking a reality in their organization.
I realize that it would be impossible to provide a step-by-step action plan that woud fit any company or situation, but the authors could have done more than offer "Find a change agent." Gee, thanks for the tip! By the end of the book I realized why the implementation side of the book was so thin - the book is a marketing tool for the authors and their associates. Near the end of the book the reader is told to get a sensei, and hey, there happen to be alot of them in Japan you can hire! Also, we, the authors, do speaking engagements if you want to hire us!
The book is definitely a worthwhile read, as it does open the eyes to the reader of a better way of operating, how far away we currently are from it, and how we are all affected by it.