Kaikaku: The Power and Magic of Lean

I stumbled across the concept of "kaikaku" in a short presentation at a conference and was interested to read more about kaikaku. This was the only book resembling what I was after on Amazon - and funnily enough is titled Kaikaku! Once I received it in the mail I quickly found it was nothing like my expectations... and I loved it.The book is a very readable autobiography of Norman Bodek, aka "Godfather of Lean". I ripped through it in no time. His writing is much like how he speaks and he is an inspiring sensei. Norman has brought so much of the knowledge of Japanese management and manufacturing practices to the West, and this is his story.The book doubles as a wonderful reference of the "who's who" of Japan's manufacturing rise during the latter part of the 20th century. It also provides suggested books on some of the various Lean topics covered (SMED, jikoda, poka-yoke, 5S, etc.). This is really useful if you're wanting to read more on Lean practices and philosophies but don't know where to start.This may not suit every reader, and yes you'll notice typos here and there, but I loved it.

This is an excellent book for those looking for a history and overview of the evolution of Lean Manufacturing. Unfortunately the book is so riddled with grammatical and spelling errors that it is distracting. Please don't judge the other books he has brought to us by this one. Norm Bodek is the guy who got all of those great Japanese management books translated to English, and those that I have read, such as JIT is Flow and 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace, are excellent.

plagerized useless crap

I am a Lean Practioner and 6 Sigma Black Belt. The advertisement for the book lead me to beleive that it was something different. I enjoyed and learned from the book.What the book was to me is a personal history of the introduction of lean to the US. Mr. Bodek was a key and instrumental force in doing so. From that perspective the book fills in a lot of gaps of how things happened and who played what role. The book also gives a great overview of what Lean (Toyota Production System, TPS) is and how it is applied, and who the key players were/are and an insight to their personalities.The book is not a detailed examination of the production system. If you are looking for that, Mr. Bodek gives references to other books published by his company translated from the original Japanese. This gives you insight to those works and which to chose from. This, in and of itself, is worth the price of this book.The book does cover the major topics of the TPS and gives plenty of examples and implementation stories. The stories are great in themsleves, and a great insight to the way of Japanese management. Mr. Bodek is a strong proponent of that style. It also goes into some biographies of the key players in the process. It hits on Demings' and Juran's impact in Japan.The war stories of the industrial touring trips to Japan were interesting. The problems faced by jumping in to the publishing opportunities to present the original works to a new audience were facinating business stories.The biggest AHA moment for me was the discussion on Quick and Easy Kaizen, or the Japanese implementation of a sugggestion system. Radically different from any I've seen in the US outside of Honda and Toyota.If your looking for a fast easy read on the history of bringing Lean to the US and the key underpinnings of the process to include a good description of the key components with annecdotes, this is the book for you. If your looking to understand lean and find other references of use to you, this is the book for you. If your insterested in filling in some knowledge gaps of how and why some things happened, again, this is for you. If your looking for specific action items to implement specific components, go elsewhere, or use this book as a guide.

I don't know why my original review disappeared, but it had gotten 1 useful vote.I got this book after having read lots of books published by Mr. Bodek's Productivity Press. Although this book was not what I expected, I still found it to be an enjoyable, autobiographical narrative. The sections dealing with an eccentric Shigeo Shingo were the best. Kaikaku is not a book that tells you how to turn your company around; it is an informal, easy-going history of how Norman brought Ohno and Shingo to the US.However, the poor production values (sloppy edits, inexplicable font changes, missed changes between block quote and normal text) were distracting. My warning to readers is that if this is the first book you ever read by Mr. Bodek, don't use this to judge the quality of other products put out by his former employer, Productivity Press.