The Complete Lean Enterprise: Value Stream Mapping for Administrative and Office Processes (Paperback)

~ (Author), Drew Locher (Author) "It may surprise some people, but all of the lean concepts typically applied to the production processes of an organization also apply to nonproduction and..." (more)
Key Phrases: office value streams, value stream manager, value stream design, Lean Example, Assembly Pack, Fabricate Finish (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a strategic lean tool that connects the value stream management of manufacturing processes to the rest of the enterprise!" -- Ron Fardell, Director of Lean, Textron, Inc.

"...it deserves a spot next to Learning to See." -- Peter Ward, Professor of Operations Management, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University

"...the next generation of waste identification and elimination is in the business support functions." -- Dr. Ross E. Robson, Executive Director, Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing, Utah State University

"The Complete Lean Enterprise is an excellent tool to guide the enterprising manager to a new lean process solution." -- Kent Sears, Vice President, Manufacturing Processes and Lean Implementation, General Motors Corporation

"…Their method is practical, pragmatic and can easily be transferred to others. ... This is the Rosetta stone for VSM." -- Tom Berghan, Manager, Lean Systems, Esterline Korry

"The Complete Lean Enterprise is an excellent tool to guide the enterprising manager to a new lean process solution. The step-by-step instructions are easy for the beginner to follow, and the lean examples, team exercises, and mapping tips add a credible voice of experience to the manuscript. And, best of all, It works!"
Kent Sears, VP, Manufacturing Processes and Lean Implementation, GM 06/01/04

"Keyte and Locher have provided a valuable contribution for identifying strategic operational value streams for administrative and office processes. They demonstrate that the next generation of waste identification and elimination is in the business support functions."
Dr. Ross E. Robson, Executive Director, Shingo Prize, Utah State University 06/01/04

"This book is a must-read for leaders struggling to remove waste, reduce time, and improve responsiveness in white-collar processes. I expect to see well-worn copies of The Complete Lean Enterprise in offices everywhere — it deserves a spot next to Learning to See."
Peter Ward, Prof. of Operations Mgmt, Fisher College of Business 06/01/04

"Their method is practical, pragmatic and can easily be transferred to others. This is the book. This is the Rosetta stone for VSM."
Tom Berghan, Manager, Lean Systems, Esterline Korry 06/01/04

"Beau and Drew have developed a strategic lean tool that connects the value stream management of manufacturing processes to the rest of the enterprise! This tool applies to Office and Manufacturing processes, providing a systematic approach to eliminate waste along the entire product delivering value stream."
Ron Fardell, Director of Lean, Textron, Inc. 06/01/04

"…this is a very welcome book in an expanding field. It is clear and easy to read, even for non-quality and non-lean people. Used well, it could be the lever by which significant further savings and improved business capability are built into many different enterprises."
Review

Product Description

THE COMPLETE LEAN ENTERPRISE: Value Stream Mapping for Administrative and Office Processes Beau Keyte and Drew Locher This new book provides a step-by-step approach to applying lean initiatives to the office environment. This title is a must read for those looking to improve their production support activities by identifying waste, establishing performance metrics, speeding up administrative workflow, and improving office efficiency.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Productivity Press; 1 edition (July 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563273012
• ISBN-13: 978-1563273018
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #67,750 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent. Very practical & helpful book, September 10, 2004

By	Brian Maskell (Cherry Hill, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For a long time "lean thinking" has been focused on the shop floor. Almost all the books and training materials deal exclusively with production issues. At last, we have a practical book on how to apply lean to office processes. In this book Locher & Keyte show how to extend value stream mapping out of the shop floor and into the all-important support processes like order-entry, customer service, product configuration & design, purchasing, accounts payable, and others. The step-by-step approach makes it easy to adapt these examples to your own real-life situation. This book will become the standard approach to office process improvements and kaizens.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A LOGICAL EXTENSION OF LEAN PRINCIPLES, September 30, 2005

By	Clayton Fife (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a good tutorial to apply Lean to an office setting, but a basic understanding of the Lean principles is required to take full advantage of the work as many parallels are drawn between manufacturing applications and their office counterparts. Overall very useful, but especially in a manufacturing/production-support office environment more than in a traditional service or other type of office setting.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction to VSM for office operation, March 10, 2007

By	O. David (Schweiz) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The value of this book depends strongly on your personal knowledge about VSM and JIT/Lean. I was more used to the approach from Quick-Response-Manufacturing as Tagging&Process Mapping. Anyway, for people searching an introduction to Value-Stream-Mapping and especially the office part, I can recommend this book - the production part of the good example used, is not discussed in details - but this is not the goal of the book anyway. I read many different books to get started with VSM, but this one is one of the simpliest and most consistent books about VSM for office operation. The writters refer to one single example of a company and develop the case in a understandable manner.

Readers interested in VSM for the shoopfloor should read this book as well. As a matter, it is unfortunatelly true, that companies focus there attention to the shopfloor operations, meanwhile the potential of upstream and non-production processes are ignored. This book gives you a good knowledge, how to start your journey.

I bought both books, Complete-Lean-Enterprise (the one I refer to here) as well as Value-Stream-Management-for-the-Lean-Office. Meanwhile the first one gave me a much better overview how to practice VSM, the second one was quite week (bad case example in my oppinion) and I could not get the point how to proceed with the VSM-technique. On the other side, the later book provides more information about important issues as pitch, heijunka, work balancing etc., but already using VSM for the shopfloor and having knowledge about JIT/Lean, this will not provide new insights to you anyway. Conclusion, I would recommend this book here to get started and definetly not the book Value-Stream-Mgmnt.-for-the-Lean-office!

Best Regards,
Oliver