Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together - Hardcover

Womack, James P.; Jones, Daniel T.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743277783 ISBN 13: 9780743277785

Publisher: Free Press, 2005

Synopsis

In this landmark new book, James Womack and Daniel Jones deconstruct this broken producer-consumer model and show businesses how to repair it.

A massive disconnect exists between consumers and providers today. Consumers have a greater selection of higher quality goods to choose from and can obtain these items from a growing number of sources. Computers, cars, and even big-box retail sites promise to solve our every need. So why aren't consumers any happier?

Because everything surrounding the process of obtaining and using all these products causes us frustration and disappointment. Why is it that, when our computers or our cell phones fail to satisfy our needs, virtually every interaction with help lines, support centers, or any organization providing service is marked with wasted time and extra hassle? And who among us hasn't spent countless hours in the waiting room at the doctor's office, or driven away from the mechanic only to have the "fix engine" light go on?

In their bestselling business classic Lean Thinking, James Womack and Daniel Jones introduced the world to the principles of lean production -- principles for eliminating waste during production. Now, in Lean Solutions, the authors establish the groundbreaking principles of lean consumption, showing companies how to eliminate inefficiency during consumption.

The problem is neither that companies don't care nor that the people trying to fix our broken products are inept. Rather, it's that few companies today see consumption as a process -- a series of linked goods and services, all of which must occur seamlessly for the consumer to be satisfied. Buying a home computer, for example, involves researching, purchasing, integrating, maintaining, upgrading, and, ultimately, replacing it.

Across all industries, companies that apply the principles of lean consumption will learn how to provide the full value consumers desire from products without wasting time or effort -- theirs or the consumers' -- and as a result these companies will be more profitable and competitive.

Lean Solutions is full of surprising success stories: Fujitsu, a leading service company for technology, has transformed the way call centers solve problems -- learning how to eliminate the underlying cause of current problems rather than fixing them again and again. An extremely successful car dealership has adopted lean principles to streamline its business, making for dramatically reduced wait time, fewer return trips, and greater satisfaction for customers -- and a far more lucrative enterprise.

Lean Solutions will inspire managers to take the first steps toward perfecting their company's process of giving consumers what they really want.

About this title

About the Author

James P. Womack is the president and founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org), a nonprofit education and research organization based in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Daniel T. Jones is the chairman and founder of the Lean Enterprise Academy (www.leanuk.org), a nonprofit education and research organization based in the UK.

Reviews

In Lean Thinking (1996), Womack and Jones expanded on the lean manufacturing model developed by Toyota to reduce waste and costs, reduce lead times, and improve quality. Here, they bring lean thinking to the broader world of consumer satisfaction. Traditional mass-consumption thinking has brought us tons of gee-whiz products but more frustration when it comes to actually getting what we want where and when we want it. Through a series of "consumption maps," Womack and Jones highlight the "hassle time" inherent in the ways we shop, travel, and receive essential services, and then they offer novel ways for both consumers and providers to reduce this wasted time. We all know the dissatisfaction of going to the grocery store and finding the very item we need is out of stock. The new models reduce out-of-stock situations drastically by allowing consumers to dictate flow through demand rather than flow being driven by sales projections. Womack and Jones introduce ways to bring lean provision streams to some of our most hassle-laden consumer experiences, including the auto-repair, airline, and health-care industries. We can only hope someone is listening. David Siegfried
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Edition details

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743277783
• ISBN 13: 9780743277785
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368