How do you keep up with the latest trends and developments in Lean Manufacturing by reading books?

2 How to choose books?

When looking for books on Lean Manufacturing, there are hundreds of options to choose from. To narrow down your selection, consider what you want to achieve, your current level of knowledge and experience, and your preferred style of reading and learning. For example, do you want to focus on a specific aspect such as lean leadership or lean tools? What is your level of expertise? Do you prefer a book that is more theoretical or practical, more descriptive or prescriptive? Additionally, do you want a book that is engaging and entertaining, or one that is informative and factual? By considering these criteria, you can find the books that are most relevant and useful for you.

3 How to read books?

If you've chosen a book on Lean Manufacturing that suits your goal, level, and style, how do you read it effectively? To get the most out of your reading experience, it's important to preview the book cover, table of contents, introduction, and summary before beginning. As you read, pay attention to the key concepts, examples, and arguments presented by the author. Make sure to highlight or take notes on the important information and ideas that you want to remember. After finishing the book, review your notes and summarize the main takeaways and lessons that you learned. Ask yourself questions such as what did you agree or disagree with? What did you find surprising or interesting? How can you apply what you learned to your own work situation?

4 How to apply books?

Reading a book on Lean Manufacturing is not enough to make you a better lean practitioner. To truly apply what you learn, you must take action and see how it works in practice. To do this, first identify a specific problem or opportunity that you want to address with lean. Define your goal, scope, and measures of success, then choose one or more lean tools or methods from the book and decide how you will use them. Next, implement your plan and observe the results and feedback. Collect and analyze data to document your process and outcomes. Don't forget to anticipate challenges and difficulties, as well as learn from mistakes and failures. After this, evaluate your performance against expectations and standards. Identify what worked well and what didn't, and why. Celebrate achievements while acknowledging gaps and weaknesses. Finally, based on your evaluation, make adjustments and improvements to your plan before repeating the cycle. Keep learning with lean, seek feedback from others, share results with colleagues and managers, and inspire them to join you on your lean journey.

5 How to keep learning?

Reading books on Lean Manufacturing is a great way to keep learning and growing as a lean practitioner, but there are many other sources and resources you can use to complement and enhance your reading. Podcasts, blogs, webinars, courses, and events are all great ways to gain new insights, tips, advice, opinions, recommendations, practical guidance, examples, feedback, structured learning, assessment, recognition, skills and credentials. You can also connect with other lean professionals, experts and authors to exchange ideas and experiences.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?