Getting to Lean

"Getting to Lean" is a guide to transformational change. It is about creating the future. It provides a process for significant and large scale change in culture and capabilities to build a sustainable lean enterprise. Getting to Lean presents whole-system architecture which engages stakeholders in aligning the systems and structures of the organization toward a common purpose.


Many change efforts separate lean management into its component parts, and like organs removed from the body, they are not sustainable. Systems that are whole and aligned are sustainable. This book is a guide to creating sustainable change.


"Getting to Lean" presents the practical lessons the author has learned from more than one hundred whole-system change efforts. It addresses the technical system (work process), the social system, and the economic system which must all be aligned to principles and to the strategy of the enterprise. It is not just about problem solving, it is a systematic plan for creating the architecture of the lean organization.


"In the early 1980's I was most fortunate to publish the books of Taiichi Ohno and Dr. Shigeo Shingo that gave us the Toyota Production System (Lean). At around the same time I had the privilege to know and work with Dr. Lou Davis who taught and consulted on Socio-Technical Systems. I thought that if American industry was only smart enough to realize how to put together Lean and Socio-Tech we could really rule the world and be the most competitive. Larry Miller was one of the few consultants to understand the power of the combination. I never give up and hopefully the leaders of American industry can begin to listen to Larry's wisdom." - Norman Bodek (author of The Harada Method, Quick and Easy Kaizen.)