The most important trend in manufacturing for the last 10 years has been "Lean Production." This trend grew out of Toyota's world-leading cycle-time and waste reduction techniques, and was originally described in the bestseller The Machine That Changed The World: The Story of Lean Production (James Womack, HarperCollins, 1991, over 400,000 copies sold) and the follow-up book, Lean Thinking (Simon & Schuster, 1996). Lean Production uses Japanese improvement methods such as Just-In-Time delivery to cut waste and costs, reduce lead times, and improve quality and resource utilization. Over the last ten years, at least 20 books have been published on the subject of Lean Production, and most manufacturers of any size have implemented some form of Lean Production. Lean Six Sigma will be the first book that explains how to integrate the two leading trends in quality improvement: Lean Production and Six Sigma. The difference between the two trends is that Six Sigma tools focus on improving the quality of a product or service, whereas Lean focuses on eliminating waste and improving cycle time in a production process.
Integrating Lean Production methods with the quality tools used in Six Sigma produces faster and greater performance improvements, resulting in increased growth and profitability. The speed with which Lean Six Sigma can deliver cost reductions has been made possible by recent advances in Web technology and the widespread implementation of MRP, ERP and supply chain systems. Most companies can expect significant cost reduction within a year. Lean Six Sigma describes these technology advances and their importance for combining the speed emphasis of Lean Production with the quality focus of Six Sigma.