Lean Machines: Learning From The Leaders Of The Next Industrial Revolution provides readers with a unique compilation of interviews with some of the country's most respected executives who have deep intellectual and emotional experience in implementing lean.

CEOs, vice presidents, consultants, Wall Street analysts and accountants provide readers with their perspectives on how to implement a lean business system. They are the architects of such successful implementations as Pratt & Whitney's Achieving Competitive Excellence program, the Danaher Business System, the Alcoa Production System and Freudenberg NOK's hugely successful six-step lean process.

Each of the 15 offers advice on how to overcome the barriers from the shop floor, to mid-level management, to the board room. They provide their personal experiences, insights and recommendations on the most important aspects of embedding lean systems within a corporate culture. All have successfully implemented a fundamentally different and often counter-intuitive system of running their business based on the lean principles of build to order, continuous improvement and the elimination of waste.

The interviews were conducted by Manufacturing News Editor & Publisher Richard McCormack and include the following individuals:

o George Koenigsaecker, Former CEO, HON Industries and Principal, Simpler Consulting;

o Michael Joyce, Corporate Vice President of Operating Excellence at Lockheed Martin;

o Robert Weiner, Senior Vice President of Global Manufacturing, Exide Technologies;

o Mark DeLuzio, Architect, Danaher Business System & President of Lean Horizons;

o James Womack, President, Lean Enterprise Institute and author of Lean Thinking and The Machine That Changed The World;

o Dave Logozzo, Director of Manufacturing Operations, Delphi Corp.;

o Cliff Ransom, Director of Research, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC;

o Ken Kreafle, Vice President of Quality at Toyota, Georgetown, Ky.;

o Keith Turnbull, Executive Vice President, Alcoa Business System;

o Allen Haggerty, General Manager of Engineering, Boeing;

o Brian Maskell, President, BMA Inc., Lean Accounting;

o Art Byrne, President and CEO of Wiremold Co.;

o Major Gen. Dennis Haines, Warner Robins AFB;

o Joseph Day, CEO, Freudenberg-NOK; and

o Dan Yurovich, CEO, Barry Controls

o Lt. Col. Fred Hart, Commander, U.S. Army Red River Depot