Liquid Lean: Developing Lean Culture in the Process Industries

While Lean practices have been successfully implemented into the process industry with excellent results for over 20 years (including the author’s own award winning example at Exxon Chemical), that industry has been especially slow in adopting Lean. Part of the problem is that the process industry needs its own version of Lean. The larger part of the problem is resistance to transformational change, a barrier that can only be overcome with effective leadership and results-oriented planning that engages rather than excludes all stakeholders.

Winner of a 2012 Shingo Prize!Written by Raymond Floyd, an unparalleled leader of Lean transformations, Liquid Lean: Developing Lean Culture in the Process Industries provides potential process industry change agents with the no-nonsense guide needed to eliminate waste and achieve sustainable optimal efficiency. Presenting lessons in lean as they apply within the liquid industries, the book focuses on developing the four measures of Lean as defined by the Shingo Award:

1. Business Results
2. Consistent Lean Enterprise Culture
3. Continuous Process Improvement
4. Cultural Enablers

Illustrated with his own success stories, Floyd describes business results, Lean enterprise thinking, and policy deployment in process industry terms. He offers detailed theory, practice, and examples of continuous process improvement, and describes the leadership and defines the ethics needed to evolve and sustain Lean transformation. Floyd lays out the specific steps needed during the first six months of transformation and the benchmarks to be achieved during the first two years of implementation. All companies can benefit from Lean; this book makes sure that those who want it, know how.

Raymond C. Floyd is senior vice president of Suncor Energy. Prior to joining Suncor, Ray retired from Exxon Mobil, where he spent more than 20 years and where he most recently served as global manager of manufacturing services. Previously, he was with General Motors for more than 10 years. Ray is generally recognized as one of North America’s “early adopters” of lean manufacturing and is among the very first worldwide to adapt lean technologies for use in the chemical and process industries.

Following the practices described in this book, Ray led the first chemical business to receive the Shingo Prize and has led two separate businesses that have been designated as one of “America’s ten best plants” by IndustryWeek magazine. Ray is the only person to lead businesses in both chemical and mechanical manufacturing to receive that designation. As site manager for Exxon’s massive Baytown chemical plant, Ray led the team that was designated as “best maintenance organization in large industry” by Maintenance Technology magazine. Ray received the Andersen Consulting award for “excellence in managing the human side of change.”

Ray has degrees in chemical engineering, business administration, and law. He is professionally licensed as an engineer, attorney-at-law, and patent attorney. He has also received international senior executive development at the Institute for International Studies and Training in Japan and the Institute for Management Development in Switzerland. Ray was appointed by President Reagan to represent the United States at the Japan Business Study Program as a guest of Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Ray’s wife, Marsha, is also an attorney-at-law. Ray and Marsha have two daughters, who are both physicians, and five grandchildren.