Lean in a High-Variability Business

Dr. Eduardo Lander received his doctorate in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (Advisor: Dr Liker). He then went to work for Toyota’s R&D center in Brussels, Belgium. He has since left Toyota and is working as an independent consultant with Zingerman’s Mail Order as one of his clients.Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan and President of Liker Lean Advisors. He is author of the international best-seller, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer, 2004 (26 languages, over 950,000 copies sold), and has coauthored nine other books about Toyota including Toyota Culture, The Toyota Product Development System, The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership (2011) and Developing Lean Leaders at all Levels: A Practical Guide (2014). In 2016 he published The Toyota Way to Service Excellence and coauthored a lean transformation business novel called Trenches. His articles and books have won thirteen Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence. In 2012 he was inducted into the Association of Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame and in 2016 inducted into the Shingo Academy.Tom Root is an entrepreneur who originally envisioned Zingeman’s Mail Order and started it up as a co-partner and then founded the Maker Works as his second business. In 2002, Zingerman's Mail Order and Zingermans.com merged and Tom took on the role of Chief Financial Officer of the resulting business (known simply as Zingerman’s Mail Order). As CFO, Tom has championed open book management and taken the lead on educating staff about the financial ins and outs of the business. In 2004, Tom was introduced to the concepts of Lean Manufacturing popularized by Toyota. Building on his experience with open book finance, Tom worked to bring the philosophy of continuous improvement and waste elimination to Mail Order. For the last 10 years Tom has been practicing Lean thinking though process improvement, class development and teaching.In 2008, Tom was inspired by the financial crisis to start Maker Works. Maker Works is 11,000 sq ft manufacturing facility that is operated like a health club. Individuals or businesses purchase memberships to have access to high-tech tools like laser cutters, 3D printers and CNC plasma cutters. The mission of Maker Works is to democratize the tools of manufacturing to foster job creation, community and self-sustainability.In September of 2014, Maker Works celebrated its 3-year anniversary. It has attracted more than 700 members, added 16,000 sq ft of tenant space and played a role in a handful of start-ups including Sight Machine, a venture funded computer vision start-up.

• 1.1 Intro 1.2. Lean journey begins 1.3.1. TourScene1-Intro to ZMO 1.3.2. TourScene2-Service Center 1.3.3. TourScene3-Corporate Gifts 1.3.4. TourScene4-Pick Market 1.3.5. LeanTourScene5-Bread 1.3.6. LeanTourScene6-HotPod 1.3.7. LeanTourScene7-OR_Pick 1.3.8. LeanTourScene8-Check 1.3.9. LeanTourScene9-Assembly 1.3.10. Tour-Recomb 1.3.11. Tour-Pack_Ship 1.3.12. TourScene12-Hiring 2.1.1. FirstTimeAtTheLine 2.1.2 Approach 2.1.3. ZingHistoryServantLeader 2.1.4. Current condition and initial direction 2.2.1a. ImproveFlow-Layout 2.2.1b. ImproveFlow-Markets_Routes 2.2.2a. Leveling 2.2.2b. Pacing 2.3.1. First reflection 2.3.2. Takt 2.3.3. HYN 2.4.1. Second year reflection 2.4.2. SOP 2.5.1. ZMO continues alone 3.1.1. Improvement systems are not equal 3.1.2. TBP 3.1.3. Kata to the rescue 3.1.4. Release the Kata 4.1. Lessosn learned

John Dewey famously pointed out, "We don't learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." Here's your chance to learn as the three authors reflect on the (successful) struggle to build a Lean production and management system at Zingerman's Mail Order. Thousands of people visit and benchmark ZMO. This book delivers the backstory in a richly illustrated way. -- Mike Rother, author of the bestselling books Toyota Kata and The Toyota Kata Practice Guide"Excelsior!" as Stan Lee would've said. A fantastic introduction and fun book to read with your team to really get into lean thinking and learn by doing. Don't miss it!-- Michael Ballé, author of The Goldmine trilogy and other Lean worksAn amazing story is told of a local community business striving to transform using lean principles. The comic book format provides vivid images and powerful personal stories of the failures and successes of a lean transformation in a low volume, high complexity environment. For those on their lean journey, this is a must read!-- Jeff Rivera, Chief Operating Officer, Lineage LogisticsThis is the story of a receptive servant leadership team, reaching out to lean coaches devoted to teaching, willing to do something different. They defined the direction through a set of challenges pursued with patience and passion. The graphic novel format allows us to feel the daily struggles as they overcame obstacles by developing and engaging the people that do the work.-- Eduardo Martinez Montiel, Director of Operational Excellence