The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road

Embarking on a lean journey is similar to hitchhiking — there are many roads on which to wander and no single one is right for all. This book reveals the most critical lessons learned over the authors’ combined 30-plus years of exploring lean highways and shares stories based on real-world applications. The authors focus on areas where most lean efforts fail to illustrate steps to take to reenergize, accelerate and sustain a lean transformation. The book’s ten chapters cover lean principles and thinking, lean leadership moves, the roadmap for lean transformation, common pitfalls of lean journeys, building an operating system, lean accounting, lean material management, lean in service organizations, and how individuals can apply lean to improve themselves. The book concludes with interviews of lean practitioners on the front lines of change at Chrysler, Ross Controls, DTE Energy. RSR Corporation, and Nemak.