Lean Sensei

Lean Sensei

JAMES P. WOMACK	JAMES P. WOMACK Founder and Senior Advisor, Lean Enterprise Institute
Management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., is the founder and senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc., a nonprofit training, publishing, conference, and management research company chartered in August 1997 to advance a set of ideas known as lean production and lean thinking, based initially on Toyota's business system and now being extended to an entire lean management system. The intellectual basis for the Cambridge, MA-based Institute is described in a series of books and articles co-authored by Womack and Daniel Jones over the past 20 years. The most widely known books are: The Machine That Changed the World (Macmillan/Rawson Associates, 1990), Lean Thinking (Simon & Schuster, 1996), Lean Solutions (Simon & Schuster, 2005), and Seeing The Whole Value Stream (Lean Enterprise Institute, 2011). Articles include: "From Lean Production to the Lean Enterprise" (Harvard Business Review, March-April, 1994), "Beyond Toyota: How to Root Out Waste and Pursue Perfection" (Harvard Business Review, September-October, 1996), "Lean Consumption" (Harvard Business Review, March-April, 2005). Womack received a B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago in 1970, a master's degree in transportation systems from Harvard in 1975, and a Ph.D. in political science from MIT in 1982 (for a dissertation on comparative industrial policy in the U.S., Germany, and Japan). During the period 1975-1991, he was a full-time research scientist at MIT directing a series of comparative studies of world manufacturing practices. As research director of MIT's International Motor Vehicle Program, Womack led the research team that coined the term "lean production" to describe Toyota's business system. Womack served as the Institute's chairman and CEO from 1997 until 2010 when he was succeeded by John Shook.
JOHN Y. SHOOK	John Y. Shook Chairman and CEO, Lean Enterprise Institute
John Shook is recognized as a true sensei who enthusiastically shares his knowledge and insights within the Lean Community and with those who have not yet made the lean leap. Shook learned about lean management while working for Toyota for nearly 11 years in Japan and the U.S., helping it transfer production, engineering, and management systems from Japan to NUMMI and subsequently to other operations around the world. While at Toyota's headquarters, he became the company's first American kacho (manager) in Japan. In the U.S., Shook joined Toyota's North American engineering, research and development center in Ann Arbor, MI, as general manager of administration and planning. His last position with Toyota was as senior American manager with the Toyota Supplier Support Center in Lexington, KY, assisting North American companies implement the Toyota Production System. As co-author of Learning to See John helped introduce the world to value-stream mapping. John also co-authored Kaizen Express, a bi-lingual manual of the essential concepts and tools of the Toyota Production System. In his latest book Managing to Learn, he describes the A3 management process at the heart of lean management and leadership. Shook is an industrial anthropologist with a bachelor's degree from the University of Tennessee, a master's degree from the University of Hawaii, and is a graduate of the Japan-America Institute of Management Science. He is the former director of the University of Michigan, Japan Technological Management Program, and faculty of the university's Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering. He is the author of "Toyota's Secret: The A3 Report"; Sloan Management Review, July 2010; "How to Change a Culture: Lessons from NUMMI"; Sloan Management Review, January 2010. Shook is a sought-after conference keynoter who has been interviewed on lean management by National Public Radio, Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous trade publications.
DANIEL T. JONES	Daniel T. Jones Founder and Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy
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. He is the author with James P. Womack of the influential and popular management books that describe the principles and practice of lean thinking in production, The Machine that Changed the World, and Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Organization, and the workbookbook Seeing the Whole Value Stream. Their book Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together extends these ideas to consumption, provision, and service delivery. He is the publisher of Breaking Through to Flow, Creating Lean Dealers, and Making Hospitals Work. A sought-after keynoter, Jones also has organized Lean Summit conferences in Europe, including the Frontiers of Lean Summit, the First Global Lean Healthcare Summit, and the Lean Transformation Summit. Jones advises organizations in different sectors on their lean transformations, helped establish the first company University in the UK at Unipart, wrote the UK Government's Rethinking Construction report and Lean Thinking for the NHS. He organized the first Global Healthcare Summit, mentors a dozen hospitals in the UK, Italy and the USA and published Making Hospitals Work. Jones was the European Director of MIT's Future of the Automobile and International Motor Vehicle Programs. He is advisor to the European Efficient Consumer Response movement and editor of the International Commerce Review. Jones holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Sussex.
JOSÉ R. FERRO	Jose R. Ferro President, Lean Institute Brasi
José R. Ferro is a senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute and president of Lean Institute Brasil, a nonprofit organization founded in 1999 to disseminate the principles and practices of Lean Thinking in Brazilian companies. Ferro authored chapters for the Brazilian edition of the following books, all published by Editora Campus, Rio de Janeiro: Lean Thinking, Mentalidade Enxuta nas empresas, by James Womack and Dan Jones, 1998; Collision, Colisão - GM, VW e Toyota, by Maryann Keller, 1994; The Machine That Changed the World, A máquina que mudou o mundo, by James Womack, Dan Jones and Daniel Roos, 1992. He is co-author of "Brazil: a New Pattern of Industrial Relations" in After Lean Production, coordinated by MacDuffie, Kochan and Lansbury (Cornell University Press, 1998). Ferro has worked with Autosector, an association of labor, industry, and government that aided the auto industry in Brazil. He also has worked with the National Association of Automotive Manufacturers, the Brazilian Association of Vehicle Importers, and the Union of Metallurgy Companies, and the State of Bahia government. Ferro received Ph.D. and master's degrees in business administration, Getulio Vargas Foundation, and in production engineering from the University of São Paulo in São Carlos. Since 1992, he has been a professor in the Economics Department, School of Business Administration at São Paulo, Getulio Vargas Foundation. Ferro has also held positions as professor, University of Campinas, Statistics and Computer Science Institute Master's Course in Quality Management (1992-1998); and Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988-1990).
PETER WALSH
The main thrust of Peter Walsh's work has been to help manufacturing companies to improve. In 1981 he visited Toyota in Japan, and recognized that their approach to manufacturing was very different from that of companies in Australia, USA and Europe. Since then he has continued to study and apply the ideas behind the Toyota Production System, one of its derivatives - the Kawasaki Production System - and Lean Thinking. He hosted the visit to Australia by Taichi Ohno in 1985, and first met Jim Womack and Dan Jones in 1997. In 2003 he founded Lean Enterprise Australia and organized its first public event - a conference involving Jim Womack and Jose Ferro attended by over 250 people - in March of that year. After Graduating with an honours degree in Engineering, his career roles have included Plant Management, Management Consultant and Company Chairman. In these roles he has conducted projects for organisations ranging from the largest to smallest in Australia. He has also operated extensively in the UK, and in USA, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Belgium and New Zealand. He was a nominated world automotive industry specialist with a major international consulting organization. He has been involved in numerous manufacturing and technology studies for the Australian Government, and has given papers on Lean issues to Australian Society of Accountants, at Value Chain Management conferences organised by the Commonwealth Government, and to individual enterprises. He speaks to and advises manufacturing and non-manufacturing organizations on Lean Thinking in Australia.

What is Lean?

The core idea is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources.

Quick Links

Join the Lean Community

Sign up to receive monthly e-letters and alerts about the latest articles and events.