Take the Value-Stream Walk: Presentation by Jim Womack

This presentation was recorded at the 2011 IW Best Plants Conference (www.iwbestplants.com) Hear James Womack talk about purpose, process, and people as the keys to implementing and sustaining a true lean management system and as the essential metrics for evaluating lean efforts. He will note that the best lean tool a manager can have is a good pair of shoes for walking his or her value streams. The reason: Managers and executives must learn to think "horizontally" across functions in order to understand and improve the flow of value to customers. This means un-learning the traditional "vertical" thought process based on organizational charts and optimizing departments. A good practical way to learn horizontal thinking is to take a walk -- a value-stream walk -- on a regular basis. Womack will provide practical tips and a framework, based on his years of learning by walking real-world value streams, for what managers and executives should do when they take value-stream walks.