Better Thinking, Better Results: Using the Power of Lean As a Total Business Solution [Anglais] [Relié]

"BTBR is a must read for senior managers that are serious about the Lean transformation in their company."

"[this book] clearly shows how Lean principles and practices are applied across an enterprise in a truly integrated fashion..."

This is the first book to document an actual company's Lean transformation over a ten-year period. It presents, in detail, what The Wiremold Company did to achieve its transformation and their amazing results, both financial and non-financial. The book vividly shows how Wiremold applied Lean principles and practices to the entire enterprise and throughout the value stream. The Wiremold Company achieved outstanding success in a short period of time by using Lean as a comprehensive management system, rather than as a group of tools. The leadership lessons are invaluable for anyone involved with making the Lean management system come alive in their company.

Destined to become a Lean classic, Better Thinking, Better Results is a complete description of how to achieve an enterprise-wide Lean transformation. It is filled with valuable new contributions to the body of Lean knowledge. Endnotes are rich with additional details. Better Thinking, Better Results is a 2003 Shingo Prize recipient.

Bob Emiliani is President of The Center for Lean Business Management, LLC. He has 20 years of business experience in manufacturing and service industries. He is the author or co-author of over 45 management and technical publications, including the several award winning papers. Bob’s work has been cited in numerous regional, national, and international publications. Co-authors include David Stec, Lawrence Grasso, and James Stodder, with Foreword by Bill Moffitt.

Senior managers continue to have great difficulty applying Lean principles and practices in a coherent and systematic fashion in operations, not to mention expanding it across the enterprise. Part of the challenge is the general failure to understand the role of people in the Lean transformation, as well as how to measure Lean business performance. While interest in Lean remains high, success for most companies has been elusive because they continue to use behaviors, tools, and measures that are inconsistent with Lean principles and practices. In addition, senior managers typically favor a "local incremental" approach in which pieces of the business are transformed sequentially over long periods of time. Wiremold’s Lean transformation is strikingly different and very rare. Their Lean transformation was "widespread fast," meaning that the senior management team drove the transformation across the enterprise concurrently and quickly. This unique feature is part of what makes Wiremold’s Lean transformation worth a much closer look.

Wiremold’s Lean transformation is striking in many different aspects and contains dozens of valuable lessons for CEO’s that wish to realize similar exceptional results. The way in which Wiremold carried out the Lean transformation was impressive. For example:

- Wiremold did not follow a precisely defined formula to achieve its Lean transformation, as none exists. The senior management team internalized the general principles and practices and applied them to business processes that span all functions. They used Lean as a total business solution, rather than simply as a group of tools to solve some problems in operations.

- Nearly every company that embarks on the Lean transformation has great difficulty with four key aspects: 1) understanding Lean as a management system, 2) CEO commitment and participation, 3) recognizing that Lean requires a completely different set of leadership behaviors, and 4) performance measurements, especially in management accounting. Most managers can’t or won’t abandon conventional leadership behaviors and business performance measures. The latter are ineffective and drive poor decision-making in a Lean business. They struggle to understand what the new leadership behaviors and measures should be. Wiremold did not suffer from these common problems, which are the typical modes of failure in Lean transformations.

- All senior managers interviewed possessed detailed knowledge of Lean principles and practices, regardless of functional responsibility. All have led or participated in numerous two-, three-, or five-day kaizens.

- The senior management team was committed to process and developed the discipline to sustain Lean practices, enabling them to achieve remarkable results.