“A fantastic book. The definitive guide to help Leaders take their businesses to the next level.”
Gary Lines, Quality Manager, LB Bentley
A LEADER'S GUIDE
to increasing consistency and getting significantly more work done in less time
This book will show you how to:
- Develop a deeper understanding of Lean & Continuous Improvement
- Establish a foundation for your improvement
- Help management and your teams avoid the improvement pitfalls that derail so many improvement efforts
- Develop highly effective and efficient processes
- Quickly solve any problem
- Maximise the effectiveness of your visual management
- Perform highly effective leadership & management routines
What industry leaders are saying about this book
“For those committed to enhancing their organisation's efficiency via Lean and continuous improvement, this book is essential. It presents methodologies that will empower your organisation to accomplish more in less time.”
Rodger Hooker
Chief Service Officer, Optime Subsea
“This has been a game changer, and led to significant improvements and results across the board. Darren has always been the 'go to' for advice on how to approach Daily Management, and his book has now codified this knowledge into an invaluable guide. Essential reading for Management and Practitioners alike.”
Paul Whyte
Director, Digital Systems & Value Streams, Advanced Operations, Styker
“An absolute must-read for transformation leaders who want to develop the right improvement strategy and get buy-in from across their organisation.”
Lenka Booker
Strategy and Transformation Director, Air Business
Another Lean book?
Despite the popularity of lean and continuous improvement around the world, most organisations and their leaders struggle to make improvement work.
Many try to cope with day-to-day business issues. They bury their heads in the work as they either give up on trying to improve, or flounder as they keep trying new improvement initiatives with little success.
Most Lean thinking and improvement publications focus on the use of improvement tools, but never really get to the core of why organisations are not seeing the real results from these techniques.
They talk about what to do, but not about the common problems you can expect along the way –and how to navigate these and create a fundamental change in how the business works.
Making Lean and Continuous Improvement Work will help solve this problem, and help leaders build a solid foundation to making Lean and continuous improvement work in their business.
Through numerous examples and detailed case studies, the book shows how business leaders, managers, and front-line supervisors can make Lean and continuous improvement techniques work, increasing consistency and getting more work done, in less time.
Why you should buy this book
– by John Bicheno, Emeritus Professor of Lean Enterprise
For many years now it has been well known that Lean requires both knowledge of tools and involvement of people – much like a rectangle that has no meaning in one dimension. But there is also a third dimension – that of meaningful Lean leadership experience. Note all four of these words. So it is a box rather than a rectangle that is required.
One may wonder why yet another book on Lean is necessary, to join the hundreds that are already out there. The answer is that it is this third dimension that has received relatively little attention, and especially when written by someone with deep exposure to a range of situations – different types of manufacturing, engineering, healthcare and service.
Darren has done great work in identifying the many practical pitfalls that aspiring Lean leaders and managers are prone to, and what the better alternatives are. This is an aspect that has received relatively little attention in publications because, simply, it cannot be addressed by academic surveys or by authors who lack ‘skin in the game’. I think it also explains why so many Lean implementations fail to produce anticipated results. This is real breakthrough potential.
John Bicheno
Emeritus Professor of Lean Enterprise, University of Buckingham and former
Director of the MSc In Lean Operations, Lean Enterprise Research Centre, Cardiff Business School
“Lean and continuous improvement is not new, but though there are many textbooks explaining the theory and principle, implementation is always a challenge. Darren offers real-life insight on how to turn lean terminologies into measurable success, guiding leaders to execute the lean principle daily to drive sustainable results, and creating a problem-solving organisation.”
Nadine Cheung
FPS Global Quality Director, Baker Hughes
“Darren provides a powerful message to all who seek process excellence, one that will provide the step-by-step tactics and tools to accomplish real improvement results. This book can make a huge difference in your value stream and problem-solving capability.”
Frederic Schnider
Vice President Technical, Strategy & Transformation, Aerospace
“A must-read for leaders who have all of the tools yet still struggle to implement continuous improvement initiatives in their organisations, this book fills a critical gap that exists among the vast publications in Lean principles. Darren's focus on leadership routines to drive improvement is fundamental to the sustained implementation of Lean transformation.”
Robert Sealy
Vice President of Service, Asia Pacific, Vestas Energy
About the author
Darren Walsh is Director & Leadership Coach at Making Lean Work Ltd.
A leading management consultant specialising in helping business leaders unlock the transformative power of continuous improvement, Darren has over 25 years of experience, working with some of the best in automotive, aerospace, medical devices, energy and financial services.
Graduating with a Master's degree from Lean Enterprise Research Centre, his insights have been featured in industry-leading publications and conferences.
Pre-order your copy of
Making Lean and Continuous Improvement Work
today!
Available in paperback, hardback and Kindle editions
at the following online retailers:
“Making Lean and Continuous Improvement Work is a must-read, filled with hard-earned experience in lean management and improvement philosophy. Lean and continuous improvement in business is not for the faint of heart. Darren provides us with the knowledge and wisdom to make it work.”
Terry Ortynsky, Owner, Royal Auto Group
TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL...
Accelerate your business transformation
Get Making Lean Work Training and Coaching Support –
engaging directly with Darren’s team.
✔ Develop your management and teams
✔ Maximise your organisation’s value
✔ Make Lean and continuous improvement work for your business
✔ Deliver amazing results
“Darren has changed our leadership mindset, routines and behaviour to really embrace change, removing silos, improving our performance and delivering robust results.”
Lauro Mendonça Da Silva
Global Engineering Lean & Operations Leader, FPS Baker Hughes
"Darren made me think on how to transform myself before changing my peers and teams through Lean. With a scientific approach and the support of Darren's insights, you will just improve."
Neary Tek
Director Subsea Services Business Performance, TechnipFMC
“If you are looking for a foundational base to improve your business or operation then Making Lean and Continuous Improvement Work is a must-read.
It is filled with hard-earned experience in lean management and improvement philosophy. Making lean and continuous improvement work in business is not for the faint of heart. Darren provides us with the knowledge and wisdom to make it work.”
Terry Ortynsky
Owner, Royal Auto Group
“There are many books that talk about what makes you Lean, but very few make the difference as they do not explain the common problems you can expect along the execution. Darren’s book explains crystal clearly how to navigate these and create a fundamental change in practical day to day work through the Daily Lean Management. I highly recommend it; it works and provides practical tools to make the difference.”
Gabor Szabo
Plant Manager, Bunge Global
“This book offers intriguing insights into the effectiveness and sustainability of continuous improvement techniques. After more than two decades at the coalface this Lean scribe offers his secret sauce to bridging the huge gap between continuous improvement techniques and a highly effective continuous improvement culture.”
Ray Jacques
EMEA Business Process Lead, Customer Excellence & Value Improvement, Boston Scientific
"Darren’s approach to continuous improvement is simple and clear. By utilising his methodology for Daily Lean Management, we achieved immediate impact and developed engaged employees in all areas to drive sustainable success."
Patrick Leroe
VP of Operations, Medical Devices
“It is essential that every team understands their performance and any problems in delivering customer value, but they also need to know that help is there to address problems that they cannot fix themselves. Darren outlines a proven system that combines technical improvement aspects with the support and human touch to see it successfully implemented.”
Neville Moore
Managing Director, Ulster Stores & De Gruchy
“Making Lean and Continuous Improvement Work fundamentally focuses on the main reason Lean fails to be sustained in businesses… leadership routines to support the teams delivering the improvement projects!”
Stuart Lawson
Global Head of Manufacturing, Hanley Energy
Copyright Making Lean Work Ltd 2024 | All rights reserved | Privacy Policy | Contact Darren@makingleanwork.org or +44 1656 651516