Lean in a High-Variability Business: A Graphic Novel about Lean and People at Zingerman’s Mail Order

Product Description
"John Dewey famously pointed out, 'We don't learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.' Here's your chance to learn as the three authors reflect on the (successful) struggle to build a Lean production and management system at Zingerman's Mail Order. Thousands of people visit and benchmark ZMO. This book delivers the backstory in a richly illustrated way."
-- Mike Rother, author of the bestselling books Toyota Kata and The Toyota Kata Practice Guide
This clever and highly engaging graphic novel details a story about one organization’s Lean journey with inspiration from the Toyota Way.
Over the years, common misunderstandings about what Lean is, what the journey is like, and how to advance have proliferated. Often, these misunderstandings come from the way people simplistically talk and think about Lean as if it is some concrete thing that you insert into an organization and step back to watch the results.
The authors, however, view the organization as a living system with interacting parts and constant exposure to the environment. It is dynamic, so it’s hard to predict what obstacles you will face next. Just when you think you have it solved, new challenges arise from the market, competitors, government regulations, and every direction you turn to. When you look at your organization in this way, you see Lean through a different lens. The goal is to make your processes and people into a more adaptive system so you can navigate through all the complexity and uncertainty to continually achieve your goals. This is how Toyota views things and they summarize the Toyota Way as continuous improvement and respect for people. Each person becomes a partner in struggling to learn and adapt, and specific tools are used in very different ways throughout the company to accomplish their goals.
The story presented here focuses on a small company called Zingerman’s Mail Order (ZMO). Tom Root was one of the founders of this spin-off of the Zingerman’s delicatessen. The deli was founded to bring high-quality artisanal food to Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The purpose of this book is not to provide a "recipe for implementation" – the authors want you to get a feeling for the struggle, for the learning process. They explain and demonstrate many Lean tools within the context of the journey and how they were adapted for this particular business. Toyota kata became the centerpiece of developing scientific thinking skills to begin to bring continuous improvement to life.
Review
John Dewey famously pointed out, "We don't learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." Here's your chance to learn as the three authors reflect on the (successful) struggle to build a Lean production and management system at Zingerman's Mail Order. Thousands of people visit and benchmark ZMO. This book delivers the backstory in a richly illustrated way.
-- Mike Rother, author of the bestselling books Toyota Kata and The Toyota Kata Practice Guide
"Excelsior!" as Stan Lee would've said. A fantastic introduction and fun book to read with your team to really get into lean thinking and learn by doing. Don't miss it!
-- Michael Ballé, author of The Goldmine trilogy and other Lean works
An amazing story is told of a local community business striving to transform using lean principles. The comic book format provides vivid images and powerful personal stories of the failures and successes of a lean transformation in a low volume, high complexity environment. For those on their lean journey, this is a must read!
-- Jeff Rivera, Chief Operating Officer, Lineage Logistics
This is the story of a receptive servant leadership team, reaching out to lean coaches devoted to teaching, willing to do something different. They defined the direction through a set of challenges pursued with patience and passion. The graphic novel format allows us to feel the daily struggles as they overcame obstacles by developing and enga