Book Corner: The Gold Mine
By Freddy Ballé and Michael Ballé

The Lean Enterprise Institute, well known for its non-fiction works like Lean Thinking by Womack and Jones, and its interactive workbooks like Learning to See by Rother and Shook, has ventured into fiction. Their newest publication The Gold Mine by Freddy and Micheal Ballé is not a leap of faith, but likely a compilation of real life experiences with Lean implementations weaved into a story line that helps to teach and entertain.

The story tells of a young entrepreneur, Phil, who finds himself outside his comfort zone running a manufacturing operation, and his friend Mike Woods, who wants to help him. They engage Bob Woods, Mike's father, a retired lean manufacturing guru, to advise Phil on how to solve a cash flow problem that threatens to shut his recently acquired business down.

Phil finds himself being lead through a series of lean tools by the elder Woods. They start with assessing the flow and determining what product families they are looking at. This is reminiscent of many a value stream mapping effort. They identify the waste and begin to flow the product. They progress through several more tools like Takt Time, Standardized Work, Pull, Kanban, 5S, TPM, SMED and Heijunka to name a few. The story never loses focus of the most important element of any lean transformation, the people. It is evident that the piece of lean that is being emphasized over and over is best quoted from Bob Woods "… I always say it's not about the process, it's about the people".

The additional drama of human relationships at all levels of the management team adds to the lessons taught. It is easy to lose yourself in one or more of the characters from the egotistical IT manager that haphazardly cuts MRP inventory because he doesn't want the lean team to show him up, to the young HR manager that takes to the lean tools so well that she is rapidly hired away because of her new skill set, to the frustration of the operations manager who wants only to do what is best, but can't immediately see past the way things have always been done. It is even amusing to see the comic relief of Bob Wood's apparently drunken sailor friend who has fought many lean purchasing battles and wasn't afraid to be blunt with those who got a little too arrogant about their own worth.

The novel is a light read for those looking to be entertained, but is engrossing to those who have experienced the lean transformation in a facility. I frequently found my thoughts wandering to similar situations with characters of different names from my own life experiences. It seems the Ballés not only captured a story, but the lessons to be learned by converting a facility to the lean philosophy. The steps and approach the character Bob Woods takes as the Sensei are similar to the approach used by many colleagues and coworkers who have guided managers on a lean journey. The natural progression of 'learning by doing' was evident and is the precise method most have learned to use in both learning and teaching lean. This book is highly recommended for all those interested in lean whether as a beginner or an experienced practitioner.