Dec 12, 2007 PDM - The Confused State of Lean:
Comparing Regions, Industries, Companies

This year we are holding a special December Professional Development Meeting.

To celebrate the holiday season after another good year the chapter board decided to combine two things. First, we wanted to do something special for our members. Second, we wanted to promote the publication of a new book by one of the chapter’s most esteemed members, Richard Schonberger, for thirty years one of the most significant intellectual forces in APICS.

Join us on December 12 and you will get a copy off Richard’s new book (retail value forty-five dollars) just for attending.

Program Overview

In this presentation, Dr Richard Schonberger taps the “Leanness Studies”, which track inventory turnovers for more than 1,200 companies in 33 countries for at least 15 years with the following conclusions:

1. The birthplace of lean has grown fat.
2. The hotbed of lean (U.S.) is sliding, while late-to-the-lean-party Europe is looking fairly good.
3. Many of the world’s largest companies—those expected to have best management—are unable to keep lean going or hold their lean gains. Many others show many-year trends opposite to lean.
4. In terms of long-term lean, in some industries suppliers outdo their customer (e.g., true in motor vehicles); and in other industries it’s the reverse (e.g., aerospace-defense).
5. There are several potent ways to become lean, not just via the “lean core.”
6. Most companies direct their lean efforts internally, putting aside the far greater lean opportunities that lie externally.
7. The new locus of lean innovations is not manufacturing; best best practices are spewing forth from a few leading-edge retailers.
8. Lean has become bureaucratized—heavy on administration even as it trumps for lean in operations.
9. Let ownership of production (and design?) go to most capable entities; witness the wholesale shift of manufacturing from electronics OEMs to the newly created, already massive electronic manufacturing services sector.
10. Long-term lean has compound interest effects, both as to cash and to customer allegiance.
11. Companies can have “world-class” lean even as they slide into bankruptcy, but lean limits the damage and slows the financial decline. Thus, judging lean by survival is sometimes more relevant than by financial success.

About Our Speaker

Richard Schonberger, Ph.D., is president of Schonberger & Associates, Inc. of Seattle, providing seminars and advisory services to industrial and service organizations worldwide.

In his new book, Best Practices in Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement: A Deeper Look . . . Telling Evidence from the Leanness Studies, Dr Schonberger presents some of the findings and conclusions drawn from the "leanness studies", which track inventory turnovers for more than 1,260 companies in 37 countries for at least 15 years.

Event Details

This event is sponsored by APICS-Puget Sound (APICS-NW). Click Here to return to the registration page.