4 months by cncdivi

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know that Lean Manufacturing is one of the foremost methodologies for improving the efficiency of Manufacturing.  It also forms the foundation of things like the Agile Programming methodology for software development, something I helped develop in my early years as a software developer.

If you are or want to be a practitioner of Lean Manufacturing, you will find these books to be helpful.  They’re the top choices I have found out their to help guide and educate your Lean Tendencies.

1) The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer

by Jeffrey K. Liker.

$24.09 on Amazon…

As anyone who is a student of Lean Manufacturing knows, Toyota essentially invented the concepts and tools used in Lean Manufacturing.

The primary thrust of this book is while presenting 14 different principles or tools of Lean Manufacturing, they point out that an over focus on implementing these tools piecemeal will fail.

Rather, Lean Manufacturing is a living organic system.  All parts are important, but having them function together as a living organic system is the most important aspect.

2) The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production– Toyota’s Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry

By James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos

$11.59 via Amazon…

This book first publicized in 1990 the principles of Lean Manufacturing, and it has been revised and updated.

It is a tale of the competition between two systems for manufacturing.  The first is General Motors Mass Production System, and the second is Lean Manufacturing.  Using its “secret weapon” of Lean Manufacturing, Toyota grew to be far larger and more profitable.  It was consistently more successful.

The book is organized by the functional steps of manufacturing:

  • Running the Factory
  • Designing the Product
  • Coordinating the Supply Chain
  • Dealing with the Customer
  • Managing the Lean Enterprise

One of the primary things Lean Manufacturing does is to combine all five elements in a mutually supportive way.

3) This is Lean: Resolving the Efficiency Paradox

by Modig, Niklas, Ahlstrom, Par

About $17.89 on Amazon…

This book takes Lean to a whole new level because the authors have applied Lean Principles to the writing of their book.  It captures the essence of Lean in fewer pages than comparable books in other words.  This results in one of the most concise, easy-to-graph, and fun-to-read books on the topic.

One thing to keep in mind about this book:

It is more about the mindset of lean than it is about lean tools and methods.  Read it to understand lean at a high level, perhaps as your first book on lean.  It will not be helpful beyond that.  In particular, it will not enable you to transform your organization to a lean organization.

4) Flatlined: Why Lean Transformations Fail and What to Do About It

by Mark C. Deluzio

About $26.01 on Amazon

Is your Lean Transformation not yielding the results you would have liked?  This book may be exactly what you need to get things back on track.

The book suggests that only 5-7% of companies that start down the Lean path reach a state where they could be called a Lean Enterprise.  

Given how well documented Lean is, that’s a startling statistic.  the book chalks it up to 4 factors:

  1. Failing companies see Lean as just a short-term tactical tool.
  2. The company’s Lean efforts are not connected to its overall strategy.
  3. The optimize individual functions, but not the enterprise.
  4. Leadership is either hands-off or unwilling to revisit its basics.

If you see Lean primarily as a cost-reduction tool, and treat that as your primary goal, you will not succeed.  

This book will be valuable to those who actually must transform an organization into a Lean Enterprise.

5) Lean Production Simplified

by Pascal Dennis

About $37.04 on Amazon

This book, compared to the others, is just what you’d expect in a practical, down to earth, and plain-language guide to lean manufacturing.  It is replete with all those Japanese Lean Terms we have all heard, but it really does give practical plain-language descriptions of everything.

As a source for your very own Lean Toolkit, I really like this book.

 

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