Offers insight into how to implement an efficiency system and cost-cutting strategies that are based on what customers really want, outlining a process of creating value, explaining how to identify and remove unnecessary steps, and making suggestions on how to reduce lead time.

Preface: from lean producation to lean enterprise -- Preface to the 2003 edition -- pt. 1. Lean principles -- Introduction: lean thinking versus muda -- Value -- The value stream -- Flow -- Pull -- Perfection -- pt. 2. From thinking to action: the lean leap -- The simple case -- A harder case -- The acid test -- Lean thinking versus German technik -- Mighty Toyota; tiny showa -- An action plan -- pt. 3. Lean enterprise -- A channel for the stream; a valley for the channel -- Dreaming about perfection -- pt. 4. Epilogue -- The steady advance of lean thinking -- Institutionalizing the revolution -- Afterword: the lean network -- Appendix: individuals and organizations who helped -- Glossary -- Notes. -- Index.