Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your
Corporation, by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, Simon
& Schuster, 350 pages, $25, ISBN 0-684-81035-2
In their previous book, The Machine That Changed the World, the
authors explained how companies can dramatically improve their
performance through the "lean production" approach pioneered by
Toyota. This book extends these ideas even further.
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 the
authors see it, is that managers have lost sight of value for the
customer and how to create it. By focusing on their existing
organization and outdated definitions of value, managers create waste
and the economies of the advanced countries continue to stagnate.
What's needed instead, this book suggests, is lean thinking to help
managers clearly specify value, to line up all the value-creating
activities for a specific product along a value stream, and to make
value flow smoothly at the pull of the customer in pursuit of
perfection. The first part of the book describes each of these
concepts and illustrates them with examples.
These simple ideas can breathe new life into any company in any
industry, routinely doubling both productivity and sales while
stabilizing employment. For those managers who need guidance on how
to make the lean leap in their firm, Part Two of the book provides a
step-by-step action plan, based on in-depth studies of 50 lean
companies in a wide range of industries.
Part Three explains that a further leap in lean thinking is possible
for companies by creating a lean enterprise for each of their product
families that tightly links all value-creating activities from
concept to product launch, from order to delivery, and from raw
materials into the arms of the consumer.
Womack is a researcher with the Japan Program at MIT, and Jones is
director of the Lean Enterprise Research Center at the University of
Cardiff, Wales.
Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points
that Challenge Every Company and Career, by Andrew S. Grove,
Currency-Doubleday, 210 pages, $27.50, ISBN 0-385-48258-2
Under Andy Grove's leadership, Intel has become the world's largest
chip manufacturer and one of the most profitable companies among the
Fortune 500. Grove attributes much of this success to the philosophy
and strategy he reveals in this book, which takes the reader deep
inside the workings of a major corporation.
Grove's contribution to business thinking concerns a new way of
measuring the nightmare moment every leader dreads - the moment when
massive change occurs and all bets are off. The success you had the
day before is gone, destroyed by unforeseen changes that hit like a
tidal wave. Grove calls such moments Strategic Inflection Points
(SIPs), and he has lived through several. When SIPs hit, all rules of
business shift fast, furiously and forever. SIPs can be set off by
almost anything: mega-competition, an arcane change in regulations,
or a seemingly modest change in technology
(see accompanying box).
Yet in a watchful leader's hands, SIPs can be an ace. Managed right,
a company can turn an SIP into a positive force to win in the
marketplace and emerge stronger than ever.
To achieve that level of mastery over change, you must know its
properties inside and out. Grove addresses questions such as: What
are the stages of these tidal waves? What sources do you turn to in
order to foresee dangers before trouble announces itself? When
threats abound, how do you deal with your emotions, your calendar,
your career - as well as with your most loyal managers and customers,
who may cling to tradition?
Grove examines his own record of success and failure, including how
he navigated the events of the Pentium flaw, which threatened Intel
in a major way, and how he is dealing with the SIP brought on by the
Internet.
Grove is president and CEO of Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.).
How to Recognize a Strategic Inflection
Point
Is your key competitor about to change?
Is your key complementor -- the company that in past
years mattered the most to your business -- about to
change?
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