Press Room

How to Implement Lean Manufacturing (McGraw-Hill; September 2009; Hardcover: $49.95) by Lonnie Wilson, offers real-world solutions for implementing lean manufacturing in the enterprise, covering the technical, engineering, and production aspects as well as business culture concerns.

Filled with detailed examples, the book focuses on the rapid application of lean principles so that large, early financial gains can be made. Wilson also details the necessary cultural changes required for a company to switch to lean and discusses the common reason why certain companies have failed in their implementation. He explains Toyota Production System (TPS) practices and specifies the distinct order in which lean techniques should be applied to achieve maximum gains. Global case studies help readers easily apply these situations to their own companies.

In detail, Wilson discusses how to:
• Rigorously test and retest the state of your "leanness" with unique evaluators
• Develop and deploy plant-wide strategies and goals
• Improve speed and quality and dramatically reduce costs
• Reduce variation in the manufacturing system in order to reduce inventory
• Reduce lead times to enable improved responsiveness and flexibility
• Synchronize production and supply to the customer
• Create flow and establish pull-demand systems
• Perform system-wide and specific value-stream evaluations
• Generate a comprehensive list of highly focused Kaizen activities
• Sustain process gains
• Manage constraints and reduce bottlenecks
• Implement cellular manufacturing

"One of the most unique parts of the book is a series of Lean Assessments that allows readers to benchmark their facility," says Lonnie Wilson. "It assists in the development of the action items they will need to implement in their lean initiative. In practice they can evaluate the present state of the facility, but using the assessments they can extrapolate to the hoped for condition and thereby create a gap analysis."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lonnie Wilson has been teaching and implementing Lean techniques for almost 40 years. His experience spans 20 years with an international oil company where he held a number of management positions. In 1990 he founded Quality Consultants which teaches and applies Lean techniques to Fortune 500 firms as well as small entrepreneurs, principally in the United States, Mexico and Canada.

HOW TO IMPLEMENT LEAN MANUFACTURING by Lonnie Wilson
McGraw-Hill; September 2009; Hardcover: $49.95; 336 pages; ISBN-10: 0-07-1625070; ISBN-13: 978-0-07-1625074

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