A Factory of One

xi

Introduction

Imagine being more productive, more efficient, less stressed,

and more successful in your work.

Imagine achieving this without a brain transplant, a mastery

of office politics on the order of J. Pierrepont Finch, or a raft

of assistants ministering to your needs.

Bear with me for a moment for a brief digression about

the auto industry. In 1986, it took General Motors 40 hours to

make a car, with an average of 13 defects per car. At that same

time, Toyota could produce an equivalent car in 18 hours with

only 4.5 defects per car. Fast forward to today, and you’ll find

industry reports showing that GM has now equaled the top

manufacturers in efficiency.

What enabled Toyota to outperform GM so remarkably

in 1986? What was behind the incredible quality improve-

ment at GM since that time? Fancy robots? Government bail-

outs? Positive thinking and expensive team-building retreats?

Actually, none of these. (Okay, well maybe two—but they are

not the real reason.) No, over the past two decades GM and

virtually every other manufacturing company that still matters

has made profound gains in their operations by adopting a

fundamentally different approach to making things. It’s called

Lean production.

Forget what you may have heard about Lean methods

being something that only belongs on the factory floor. In the

past decade, pharmaceutical firms, hospitals, banks, insurance

xii  ◾  Introduction

companies—even Starbucks—have adopted Lean tools to

improve quality and lower costs. In fact, over the past half-

century, Lean has proven to be the only system that reliably

enables companies to increase output and quality while reduc-

ing the required resources. (Toyota actually developed its Lean

production system specifically in response to its nearly nonex-

istent resources in the wake of World War II.)

I believe that this system can bring you, individually, the

same benefits.

Because while Lean has enabled companies to make huge

gains in how they get things done, there is a new and vast

frontier still waiting to be improved: the daily world of indi-

vidual work. Your work—the work of product development,

of advertising sales, of marketing, of human resources benefits

management, whatever—the work you do in these functions

can be transformed. By applying Lean principles to your work,

right now, you can reduce the effort and frenzy that character-

ize your days and get more, higher-quality work done with

less stress.

Lean is not a panacea for all problems, of course. Your boss

may still be taking leadership lessons from Bill Lumburgh in

the movie Office Space. Your company may still have broken

processes, silly policies, and antiquated software. But if you

learn and adopt a basic set of Lean principles, you’ll foster a

new mindset that will enable you to see your work differently,

do it better, and start on a path of constant improvement and

learning in the process.

There are several reasons I’m so passionate about this

approach to productivity—but the most important might

be that it works. These ideas are not just a collection of

inspirational stories or vague exhortations designed to

inspire you to “work smarter, not harder.” Has anyone ever

explained how to work smarter, not harder? What does that

mean, anyway?