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The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean

Lessons from the Road

Embarking on a lean journey is similar to hitchhiking - there are many roads on which to wander and no single one is right for all. The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road reveals the most critical lessons learned over the authors' combined 30-plus years of exploring lean highways. The book shares concepts and stories based on real-world applications - not theory! The authors intentionally focus on the areas where most lean efforts fail to illustrate steps to take to reenergize, accelerate and sustain a lean transformation.

The book's 10 chapters cover lean principles and thinking, lean leadership moves, the roadmap for lean transformation, common pitfalls of lean journeys, building an operating system, lean accounting, lean material management, lean in service organizations, and how individuals can apply lean to improve themselves. The book concludes with interviews of lean practitioners on the front lines of change at Chrysler, Ross Controls, DTE Energy, RSR Corporation, and Nemak.

Lean leaders add value by changing things, moving them forward, and producing different results than the day before. To lead, you must go beyond creating a vision - you must develop the vehicle that will deliver it. The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean is the vehicle that will help you move beyond the tools and take lean to a self-sustaining and continuously improving level.

Radio Interview

Select the link below to hear Jamie Flinchbaugh's interview on NAM's Manufacturing America's Future Radio Show.

Chapters-at-a-Glance:

• Think First: Five Principles of Lean
• People Need Leadership, Not Management: Five Leadership Moves for Lean
• Learning Can Be Expensive: Five Common Lean Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)
• A Thousand-Step Journey: Five Phases of the Transformation Roadmap
• Pulling It All Together: Five Dimensions of an Operating System
• Relearning to Count: Five Lean Accounting Principles
• Move It or Lose It: Five Keys to Lean Material Management
• Service on a Silver Platter: Five Factors for Lean Service
• The Transformation of One: Five Practices for Personal Lean
• Conversations From the Road — lean leaders comment on lessons-learned from:
• RSR Corporation
• DTE Energy
• DaimlerChrysler
• Nemak Corporation
• Ross Controls

What people are saying

"Wisdom transcends data, information and knowledge. Jamie Flinchbaugh and Andy Carlino truly are wise men. They show us how data, information and knowledge about management processes interact to direct lasting and meaningful change. Readers of this book will be able to rescue "lean", one of the most important management concepts in decades, from the dustbin in which TQM, reengineering and other flavors of the month now reside. But process change must start and stop at the top so this book is as important for CEOs as it is for operating managers. The book is easy to read but every page requires the reader to pause and reflect. I have been tilling in the authors’ fields for more than forty years but I studied their book twice, not as a chore but as a feast. I will send a copy to every CEO I know."

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"This book is a great introduction for the Lean "novice" and an even better reflection tool for the Lean "intermediate". The key to this entire guide is the process that the authors walk the reader through to help drive home the sharp point that Lean is about the way we think. The "practices for personal lean" drives a bias toward personal action to change the reader's behavior and thinking."

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“More than any other industry, healthcare is being criticized for its slow response to the call for improved efficiency and quality. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean is the most practical, straight forward handbook I have seen for jump-starting that process.”