Great book, very easy to understand. I'm an environmental advocate that know A Lean Business is a Green Business. You can green a building, materials, etc but imagine using LEAN Philosophy to increase the efficiency of your office paper work or manufacturing by 50%. You have now decreased the carbon footprint of that product or paperwork by 25% to 50% LEAN is how you maximize green.
I learned this from Business Consultant Max Gregorich.
He created a workshop to demonstrate how LEAN is really green.
Thank You Max, for enlightening this business friendly environmental advocate.

Ta, Ta, Darlings
DD Vasseur

Great!

One thing is becoming increasingly clear about business - we are undergoing periods of rapid change. Businesses cannot rely on doing things the way they always have done them and expect to stay competitive.

Change/improvement or transformation can no longer focus just on the manufacturing segment of the business. If you want to be a player in the new reality of business, you must go "Beyond the Lean Revolution" and embrace total enterprise transformation.

This book is more about what to do than why. If you are looking for a high level book that focuses most of the attention on theory, then this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you know that your business needs to undertake a serious transformation, this book gives you plenty of detailed, how to instruction. The value you get from the book will depend on your individual situation. This is not quick read theory book. It goes into great detail about the "what and the how to" of transformation.

The first thing you will notice which is different about this book is that it talks about enterprise transformation. The authors go into detail defining an enterprise and why you must focus on the enterprise rather than the company. In short, thinking in terms of enterprise makes you take into account all the stakeholders and their value proposition - what they expect from and provided to the company.

The book lays out seven principles of transformation: 1) adopt a holistic approach 2) secure leadership commitment to drive the transformation 3) identify relevant stakeholders and determine their value propositions 4) Focus on effectiveness before efficiency 5) address internal and external interdependences 6) ensure stability and flow within and across the enterprise and 7) emphasize organizational learning - make the transformation sustainable.

There are lots of individual real world examples illustrating each principle. The last chapter is a detailed case study showing how the principles were applied to one company.

The book gives plenty of templates and lots of detailed instructions. I am not sure that any company would be able to apply these principles without some outside help - at least to get them started on the right track and give guidance and feedback. It is so difficult to make honest assessments of our own work. But this book will serve as a guide and a roadmap - and should make any transformation much smoother.

As the authors point out, most companies are facing challenges. You have a choice about your approach to solving them. You can lead your "company through unconnected changes that may remedy some tings and meet some of the challenges. Alternatively, they can take a holistic view, determine the real current state of the enterprise and build a response that addresses where the enterprise really needs to be."

The book is written by two MIT professors, so it is not as conversational as some might prefer. But the material is well research and presented. Again, this is not a book about high level theory. It is a practical guide to developing and implementing a total enterprise transformation.

The third in a quartet of lean books I am reviewing. Much of the good stuff covered in The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership by Levitt & Conviss is replicated here. And that makes sense. The tools and templates that these MIT folks provide would be very useful to those needing to do the base analysis of new lean initiatives and or failed ones. Like other fine Amacom books this is well researched and useful. The writing style is a bit more challenging than others , but the content may have some impact on that. I would have liked more case study success stories.