(LEI: Cambridge, MA) -- Lean manufacturing, or more precisely, lean management began on the shop floor, but a growing number of companies are realizing that its ability to cut costs and lead times while improving productivity and quality has application throughout the business. These companies understand that expanding their lean transformations now will help them emerge stronger from the recession.

“Strategically, this is not the time to hunker down, simply cut costs, and wait out the storm,” says John Shook, senior advisor to the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) and author of two landmark books on lean management, Learning to See, by Mike Rother and John Shook (Lean Enterprise Institute, 1999) and Managing to Learn, by John Shook (Lean Enterpise Institute, 2008). 

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