Lean thinking
by James P. Womack · first published 1996
86% recommend14% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Case-study introduction to lean principles from Toyota and manufacturing, focused on optimizing the whole system rather than individual management
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"After a decade of downsizing and reengineering, most companies in North America, Europe, and Japan are still stuck, searching for a formula for sustainable growth and success. The problem, as Womack and Jones explain in Lean Thinking, is that managers have lost sight of value for the customer and how to create it. By focusing on their existing organizations and outdated definitions of value, managers create waste, and the economies of the advanced countries continue to stagnate.". "What's needed instead is lean thinking to help managers clearly specify value, to line up all the value-creatin
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…recommend you do a combination of lightweight textbooks for a high level overview, (like Wiley "for dummies") and a few case study style books that provide history and deep context (like "The Goal" and "Lean Thinking" by James Womack). These last two books are classics dealing with physical production. However, don't overlook service operations like healthcare and military which are good examples where the end customers…
on “Ask HN: How to self study management, especially supply chain management?” ↗I'm a fan of Womack & Jones's "Lean Thinking". This is all about Lean manufacturing, which I think is partly rooted in Deming's work. The focus is more on how to optimise the overall system than the management of individuals. The content of that…
on “Deming's Red Bead Experiment (2002)” ↗…(http://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-Principle-Writing-Thinking-Pro...) Some Mental Models are available here for free : http://www.focusinvestor.com/FocusSeriesPart3.pdf http://www.focusinvestor.com/MungerModels.pdf For systems : Lean Thinking by James Womack -------------- Some thought provoking personal effectiveness titles : The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz (http://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Fre...) The Paradox…
on “Ask HN: What books to read on developing mental models and increasing cognition?” ↗…continuos improvement. Lean is probably best known for its ability to enable Toyota to be the amazing manufacturing organization they have been (ignoring recent growth related fuckups). See the book Lean Thinking or the many Lean Software books to see the ways in which people have translated Lean concepts to software development. Of course if you want to really grok lean in the context of making products you should…
on “If Lean Works, Prove It” ↗Check out the book Lean Thinking.
on “On the Unhappiness of Software Developers” ↗…Production System: Beyond Large-scale Production" that describes his work. Womack & Jones - Their books are great and it is well worth to read them all to see a lot of the principles and case studies for lean thinking. Also, it is quite interesting to see that software development is now rediscovering some of the things that manufacturing learned much earlier - in the case of Toyota as early as in the 1950s and 1960s.…
on “Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, dies at 97” ↗…absorbing shock the bullwhip effect is stronger? I haven't read about what the lean production model is, so I'm probably just talking out my ass here, I'll keep this in mind when I'm reading that Womack 'Lean Thinking' book then.
on “Ask HN: How to self study management, especially supply chain management?” ↗