Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions

Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions; David Mann; Productivity Press, New York, NY; 2005; 211 pp., $35.

David Mann is an organizational psychologist who has been responsible for developing and supporting a lean management system and related changes in leaders' roles in

lean conversions at Steelcase, Inc., where he has worked since 1987. His thesis in this book is that most attempts to implement lean production disappoint because "lean requires an almost completely different approach in day-to-day and hour-to-hour management, compared to anything with which leaders in conventional batch-and-queue environments are familiar or comfortable." His remedy is a lean management system, whose principal elements are described in the first five chapters.

Part II then explains how one learns lean management, including the people-related issues, and what to do to sustain lean management and production systems. An assessment tool is included to help readers identify where they may need to improve.