About the Book

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.

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.”

John O. Whitney, Professor Emeritus and former Chairman of the W. Edwards Deming Center for Quality Management at the Columbia Business School

"You can be sure that this book will be required reading throughout our organization."

Bob Finn, CEO, RSR

“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.” 

James Reed, MD, MBA, President & CEO, Northeast Health

“Have you hit the wall in your implementation of lean manufacturing? Pick up The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean. This very timely book shows that lean is much more than bolting parts together in small batches. It requires—among other things—a new business operating system, and leaders with the vision and stamina to put it together. With a welcome sense of humor, The Hitchhiker's Guide will help us all face the need to retool the as yet incomplete transformation of American business.”

Tom Jackson, Author of Implementing a Lean Management System and Corporate Diagnosis

“Flinchbaugh and Carlino’s "lean is a way of thinking” work is helping people see the primacy of lean principles.  Their method is to discover these principles more deeply every day by doing improvement work and by creating an environment where improvement is integral to every job.  There is something in their insights and approaches for everyone.”

Don Kieffer, COO, Intermatic, Inc.

“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.”

Todd Simmons, COO, Simmons Foods

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean explains and explores lean from the perspective of leadership.  Very few books touch on this subject as directly as Flinchbaugh and Carlino do.  They guide you down the path of understanding just what it takes to be leader who will succeed in transforming an organization to be a lean enterprise.  The subject of lean leadership is a passing topic in a few books, but it is the topic of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean.

Flinchbaugh and Carlino begin the book by emphasizing the need to understand.  To understand history, to understand the journey, to understand thinking, and to understand the pitfalls along the way.  They guide you to understand the basic principles that must be learn, applied, and finally understood as the journey of leadership moves forward.  By understanding and following these principles, leadership guides itself and the organization to journey towards True North.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean also ties critical tactical activities to the thinking and learning process.  Leaders must learn how the ability to function simultaneously in both tactic and strategic venues are keys to success.  Within this discussion four phases are explain to give a roadmap to how the organization will evolve as the journey moves forward.  The pitfalls that befall any leader on this journey are also discussed to give leaders an understanding of what type of issues they will have to resolve along the way.  Attributes of leadership are also part of the learning and building process.  Leaders must learn and practice these in order to grow themselves and others within their organization.  It is about people after all!

 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean concludes by discussing practices that help the leader reach for a higher level.  Only by improving your own individual leadership ability can you help others to raise their own contribution to a higher level, and in turn, guide your organization to a higher level of existence.  Leadership is a conscience effort that must be learned and applied to understand, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean gives you a proven roadmap to get there.”

Jim Huntzinger, Flexware, Inc.

"Thank goodness we finally have a book that addresses the true nature of lean- a journey that can be taken by anyone, in any function, in any industry. In addition to dispelling many myths about lean, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean provides an excellent map for leading your own transformation and avoiding pitfalls along the way. What a fantastic resource for those of us who have been jaded by the “lean” initiatives (and failures) of our past."

Ryan Blanchette, ASC