PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW YORK …In their bestselling book, Value Stream Management - - Eight Steps to Planning, Mapping, and Sustaining Lean Improvements (Productivity Press, 2002) authors Don Tapping, Tom Luyster and Tom Shuker provided the framework to create a complete, visual plan for lean transformation and mastery of the skills required from implementing the plan.

Now, with Productivity Press' new, Creating Your Lean Future State - - How to Move from Seeing to Doing, authors Tom Luyster and Don Tapping provide a companion text to their VSM title. Creating Your Lean Future State is a how-to workbook detailing the implementation of lean after creation of current and future state maps. It shows the reader how to focus on key information, visually manage product flow and level production. Following the case study of a company that has already created a Future State Map (on paper), Creating Your Lean Future State shows the reader step-by-step how to implement the future state.

Mapping a value stream and creating an implementation plan for establishing the future state is no guarantee of success. Mapping is a necessary and very critical first step, but for implementation to stick, without backsliding, one must stabilize, standardize and simplify to attain the benefits promised on the future state map. This underlying concept is the basis of, Creating Your Lean Future State.

This workbook:

• Distills a complex lean implementation process into a three-step system: Stabilize, Standardize, Simplify.
  
• Shows how to apply lean tools in sequence to launch an implementation.
  
• Pulls together detailed descriptions of lean tools usually found only in separate publications, including demand planning, visual layout and heijunka.
  
• Displays all tools and techniques in their proper context.
  
• Includes a CD with blank worksheets to use in lean implementations.

Readers of Creating Your Lean Future State -- individuals with authority and responsibility for improving manufacturing operations -- from supervisors, managers and team leaders, up to and including higher level management, will find this workbook invaluable. Students and manufacturing workers who are familiar with value stream mapping of current and future states will also find this work indispensable.

About the Authors
Tom Luyster is president of Standard Lean Manufacturing Systems, Inc. (SLMS), an organization dedicated to assisting the manufacturing community in implementing lean concepts and systems. He has achieved international recognition through his work in Asia, South America and the United States.

Don Tapping directed the lean implementation for Eaton Aerospace, and has worked for more than twenty years to eliminate waste and improve bottom-line results in a variety of industries. Luyster and Tapping are co-authors of Value Stream Management - - Eight Steps to Planning, Mapping, and Sustaining Lean Improvements (Productivity Press, 2002).

About Productivity Press
Productivity Press is the premier source of authoritative information on organizational improvement, offering the broadest selection of books and learning tools about lean methodologies, based on the Toyota Production System. Whether you are responsible for production, office and administrative operations or providing services, our publications offer you proven, practical strategies for increasing efficiency and capacity while eliminating waste. We are the leading source of materials for educating and training your workforce in lean.

List price is $45.00. Complimentary review copies are available to media contacts by calling (212) 216-7865 or by e-mailing: leon.carter@taylorandfrancis.com.

For more information on Creating Your Lean Future State, or any of Productivity Press' other titles, call 1 (888) 319-5852 or access our online catalog at www.productivitypress.com.

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ADVANCE PRAISE FOR

Creating Your Lean Future State -- How to Move from Seeing to Doing

By Tom Luyster with Don Tapping

"If you buy only one book it has to be this one, written by experienced practitioners who, following the three 'S' principles, will lead you on your lean journey."

Bob Smith
Director of Lean Manufacturing Europe
Johnson Controls Inc.

"Tom Luyster is a TPS sensei in the truest sense -- his book clearly captures the sensei's advice, not just about what to do, but the details and tools for how to do it, step by step, through a complete physical lean production implementation."

David Mann, Manager
Lean Management and Organization Development
Steelcase, Inc.
Author, Creating a Lean Culture

"The financial results that have been achieved through the approach outlined in this book are far beyond what was thought to be possible."

Greg Pothoff
Manufacturing Excellence Director - North America
Inergy Automotive