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Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones was published in 1996 by Simon & Schuster, New York. This book follows a previous highly successful book by Womack, Jones and Roos entitled The Machine That Changed the World. Both books address the revolution in manufacturing represented by the Toyota Production System of the Toyota Corporation of Japan. This type of manufacturing system is called a “lean system” and is contrasted throughout the book with the traditional “mass production” system of manufacturing epitomized by batch-and-queue methods.
The authors argue that a lean way of thinking allows companies to “specify value, line up value-creating actions in the best sequence, conduct these activities without interruption whenever someone requests them, and perform them more and more effectively.
This statement leads to the five principles of lean thinking: Value, Value Stream, Flow, Pull and Perfection.

Some centuries ago, manufacturing was the domain of craftsman, skilled individuals that would create a product, start-to-finish. The industrial revolution saw the introduction of the mass production systems, typical batch-and-queue models, where economy of scale was the key element for performance – the more you produced, the cheaper you produced. The essence is captured by one of the pioneers of mass manufacturing, Henry Ford, who once said: “You can have the Model T in any color you want, as long as it is black.” Customers today want specific, customized products to suit their needs, and production systems had to comply. The solution? Lean production systems.
Lean Thinking does not provide a new management "program" for the one-minute manager. Instead, it offers a new method of thinking, of being, and, above all, of doing for the serious long-term manager -- a method that is changing the world.

James P. Womack

James P. Womack was the research director of the International Motor Vehicle Program, a US5$ million comparative study on worldwide production practices, funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is now the founder and chairman of Lean Enterprise Institute, a nonprofit institution aimed at developing the Lean Enterprise.

Daniel T. Jones

Daniel T. Jones - Founder and Chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy in the U.K., Daniel T. Jones is a senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute, management thought leader, and mentor on applying lean process thinking to every type of business.