Customer Reviews

Lean Thinking

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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? Not 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 would 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.

The principals in this book are sound. However, top management must make the full commitment and follow the principals as defined. Trying to shortcut the process will have detrimental results if not disastrous. The concepts in this book my sound very radical but in actuality are common sense. And that is the pitfall. I have seen where a company makes a commitment toward lean manufacturing. But somewhere along the line management thinks they can modify the principals or they begin to not see immediate results and they don't follow the plan to fruition. They end up losing money or their shirt! The hard way is always the easiest way. If you own your own company or are trying to sell this concept to management in your present work environment, it is important that everyone in the organization makes a commitment to Lean thinking. Do not cut corners and stay the course. Don't play with fire.

I rank the book amongst the better books that I have read along with the Goal. The book is easy to understand and yet is specific in certain systems and means for measuring waste in an organization. This is refreshing when compared to some of the books on lean manufacturing written by authors who are primarily catering to MBA's and other non technical personnel. These authors rarely have specific solutions and are full of buzzwords which their readers can quote in presentations and meetings, even though the concept may not be applicable in the environment they work in. The only disappointment with the book is that just like all other books in Lean Manufacturing, the examples used are always in dicrete or batch processing and never in a continuous environment with significant set up times which are inevitable. If you work in a discrete or batch process where set up times are small or non existent and inventory turns are low, the book is a great application.

As a strategic planning consultant, I recommend 'Lean Thinking' to all of my clients. Some mistakenly view this book as a 'how to' for manufacturing companies. While it is, it is also much more. It is an attitude about business strategy. Waste, in any type of company, drains profits in one of two ways: as direct costs that they can see today, and as indirect costs when waste discourages repeat business. For any business manager worth his or her six figure income, this book is a must read.

If you are just starting out learning about Lean Manufacturing, start with this book. It's one of those rare occasions where the sequel was better than the original. If you only have time for one and wondering where to start, "The Machine that Changed the World" is a historically important book but "Lean Thinking" is the one that actually gets you started toward implementation.

The Machine That Changed The World brought an entirely new perspective on manufacturing. This volume continues with the insightful features of the last one.

One of the significant departures from the earlier volume is the focus( or lack of it) on benchmarking. While the authors almost created the 'benchmarking industry' with that book, they no longer appear to be so fascinated by the concept.

They say- let us forget what others are doing- let us see how far can we go on our own understanding and analysis. Sounds remarkably similar to the motivational concpets of self actualization. They feel that this is the way to remove muda. After all, the entire benchmarking industry could not have produced the 10X jumps brought by Toyota Motors in the 1950-60s. So their ideas are acceptable.

Over all, the book represents an evolution of the thought and research done by these two manufacturing specialists.

Certainly a good reading. More than the price

My sister was fortunate last week to visit the Pratt & Whitney plant described in Lean Thinking. She was in awe of the changes they made, their ability to integrate kaizen for five years into the way they run the business and the comparison between the Chaku Chaku line (the new grinding machines and flow) and the older Boehm machines. As she told me about it, the book came to life. These stories are real and lean thinking does make a difference. Lining up the value creating activities into a value stream focusing on what the customer really wants has many benefits. One that Lean Thinking approaches in described in "The 2,000 Percent Solution" by Mitchell, Coles and Metz as the Ideal or Theoretical Best Practice. This is one of the steps in The Master Eight-Step Problem Solving Process described in their book. It allows you to think about the best way to do a task or reach a goal, with no resource constraints or old baggage, knowing what you know now. People report that once they develop their Ideal Best Practice, they can find a way to get there, rapidly, with greater benefits and at less cost. Lean thinking is clearly part of the 2,000 percent solution many activities. These two books should be read together to create greater success and get you there faster.