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Misconception No. 2: When Womack and two co-authors produced The Machine that Changed the World, about the Toyota Production System, “People thought it was a book about factories,” he said. In fact, he noted, the groundbreaking 1990 book included prominent chapters on managing customers, how to listen to your market, and running your entire enterprise on Lean principles. To understand that Lean is not just about production, he said, “You have to read the other four-fifths of the book.”

Misconception 3: “Most people think Lean is a within-the-walls activity to fix your company,” Womack said. But Lean works best when supply-chain partners team up to squeeze out inefficiencies and maximize flow. “It is impossible for you to get very far when the people in your value stream don’t get any better,” he said.

Misconception 4: “Lean is an improvement process production people can do — management doesn’t have to do anything. Management can ‘check the box’ and move on.” Womack said Lean requires continual co-operation at all levels, with upper management building two-way communications and trust with staff, restructuring to support decision-making at lower levels, shepherding investment in Lean projects, and generally championing Lean initiatives. Most Lean commentators have noted that management loses interest in these projects well before the rest of the staff.

In the long term, Lean will continue to thrive, he said. He noted it is spreading into health care and government, two institutions that desperately need to tighten their efforts and control costs, and he said Lean will always be needed in business.

“I am a modest optimist. I think people and societies learn more slowly than they should,” he said. In the long-run battle for competitiveness, he said, the winners will be those organizations that “get better faster than everyone else.”

For more information on Lean, and many useful essays by James Womack, visit the Lean Enterprise Institute website at http://www.lean.org/womack/.