The Lean Handbook: A Guide to the Bronze Certification Body of Knowledge

This handbook’s intention is to gather into a single reference the information related to the joint lean certification program of SME, AME, The Shingo Prize, and ASQ. This book will enhance your understanding of the certification’s Body of Knowledge (BOK) as a whole and give you a more holistic look at lean. This comprehensive handbook covers all the topics included in the BOK: cultural enablers, continuous process improvement, consistent lean enterprise culture, and business results. Written by a team of lean experts with years of experience in the field, it will be indispensible to anyone interested in implementing and sustaining a lean initiative. The book is written, by design, at the Bronze Level for certification knowledge. This means that the weightings used in the Lean BOK for the Bronze Certification were considered for the depth and breadth of material considered for each rubric. By addressing the Lean BOK at the Bronze Level, this book provides a basic understanding of the lean principles, systems, and tools at a tactical level to drive improvements with measureable results. Material from several lean practitioners with differing backgrounds and experience has been gathered to create this handbook, which serves as an ideal starting point for practitioners who want both a holistic view of lean in general and also specifically the BOK of this groundbreaking joint certification program.

About the Author

Anthony Manos is a catalyst with Profero, where he provides professional consulting services, implementation, coaching, and training for a wide variety of organizations (large and small, private and public) in many industries focusing on lean enterprise and lean healthcare. Tony has extensive knowledge of lean and quality in a wide range of work environments. He is trained and certified by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) U.S. Department of Commerce in all elements of lean manufacturing. Tony also is a lean champion for 5S Supply. Relying on his diverse knowledge of business, manufacturing techniques, and applications, Tony has assisted numerous clients in implementing a lean enterprise and lean healthcare. Over the past 10 years, he has helped over 150 companies in several aspects of lean implementation, including team building, standardized work, 5S workplace organization and visual workplace, quick changeover, plant layout, cellular, kanban, total productive maintenance, kaizen events, and hoshin planning. Tony is an internationally recognized speaker and expert on lean and presents at several conferences a year. As an ASQ faculty member, he teaches a two-day course in lean enterprise and a one-day course on kaizen. Tony is the pastchair of the Lean Enterprise Division of ASQ. He is a senior member of SME and a member of AME. Tony is coauthor of the book Lean Kaizen: A Simplified Approach to Process Improvement and author of many articles on lean and its allied subjects. He serves as an ASQ representative to the Lean Certification Oversight and Appeals Committee. Tony is Lean Bronze Certified and was part of the original team to develop the Lean Certification. Tony served in the US Navy nuclear propulsion program. He holds an MBA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Chad Vincent is a lean manufacturing specialist and corporate operational excellence team member with Greif, Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri, where he provides professional guidance, facilitates implementation, and coaches and trains personnel at manufacturing facilities on lean enterprise and operational excellence. Prior to Greif, he worked as a quality engineer in the medical device field and as a project engineer in the construction industry; he also has worked in management in the logistics and transportation industry. Chad has served as a senior lead examiner and judge for the Governor’s Quality Award (Arkansas’ equivalent of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award) and is past president of the Leadership Arkansas Alumni Association Board of Directors. Chad is an advocate for ASQ’s Socially Responsible Organization (SRO) Initiative and a member of SME’s Lean to Green Committee. He has written articles, such as “Back in Circulation” for Quality Progress, on the utilizing of lean to achieve socially responsible and environmentally favorable results within organizations and on defining the 8 Green Wastes for environment, health, and safety (EHS) professionals to apply lean in their areas of expertise. He is a voting member of the US Technical Advisory Group (TAG) for the ISO 26000 Guidance for Social Responsibility. Chad earned a BS in engineering management, specializing in quality engineering, from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, in Rolla, Missouri He is a senior member of ASQ and SME, and is currently the ASQ Lean Enterprise treasurer and serves on the SME/AME/Shingo/ASQ Lean Certification Oversight and Appeals Committee. Chad is a CQE, CRE, CMQ/OE, and CSSBB, and he is Lean Bronze Certified.