The Lean Toolbox Sixth Edition - by John R Bicheno & Matthias Holweg (Paperback)

About the Book

The latest edition of a long-established sourcebook on most Lean tools covering manufacturing and administration. Essential detail with guidance on further reading. A one-stop source for most practitioners and students.

Book Synopsis

This is the 6^th edition of a book that has become a standard reference to Lean principles, systems, and tools. It is used by Lean practitioners and Industrial Engineers in the UK, USA, Ireland, Scandinavia, South Africa, and Australia. Like earlier editions, the book is written in plain language, with minimal padding, especially for busy practitioners and managers at all levels.

Previous editions have sold over 130,000 copies, and adapted versions have been translated into Danish, Chinese and German. Across its editions, the Lean Toolbox has been prescribed reading at several UK, US, Irish and South African universities, and has featured as a standard reference for the APICS / ASCM professional CPIM examination.

This edition marks once again a significant update. New sections now cover digital tools and how these can support lean transformations, how to respond to complexity and uncertainty in the world firms operate in, and the importance of psychological safety in making sustainable improvements. Significant further revisions reflect advances in scheduling, demand management, problem solving, layout, and in many fundamental topics.

Apart from updates in many sections, this new (Sixth) edition has new (or substantially revised) sections on Digital Lean, Process mining, Bottlenecks and floating bottlenecks, Demand management and demand categories, A Scheduling framework, Psychological safety, Environmental sustainability, The Job Characteristics Model, A TPM Maintenance framework, Scrum and Agile, Seru Cells, OODA vs PDSA, and Engagement

Review Quotes

The new edition is a truly extended version which links so many lean methods, principles and values together and in a way others do not. The reason? Simple - The authors are lean experts, they draw upon decades of research and have a great way of making this knowledge accessible and relevant to the modern professional manager. Access to this quality of knowledge is rare and such this book should never be out of arms reach of anyone improving systems and delivering value to customers (internal or external).

• Nick Rich (Professor of Socio-Tech Systems, University of Swansea)