The Society of Manufacturing Engineers recently released The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road, a book that explores actual lean applications. Authors Jamie Flinchbaugh and Andy Carlino, founders and partners in the Lean Learning Center, use the book to reveal the most critical lessons learned in their 30-plus years of using and implementing lean principles. One of the book’s main lessons is that lean leaders add value by changing things and moving them forward, and by producing different results. To lead, the authors say, you must go beyond creating a vision—you must develop the vehicle that will deliver it.

“This book will help you learn lean, taking you through everything from lean principles to pitfalls to avoid,” says Dennis Pawley, a contributor to the book. “Creating change, particularly the kind discussed in this book, is a war to win the hearts and minds of people and lead them where you want to go.”

The book covers lean principles and thinking, lean leadership moves, the roadmap for lean transformation, common pitfalls of lean journeys, building an operating system, lean accounting, and lean in service organizations. It concludes with interviews from leading lean practitioners at DaimlerChrysler, Ross Controls, DTE Energy, RSR Corp. and Nemak.

For more information, visit www.sme.org.

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