The Machine That Changed the World (book)

The Machine That Changed the World is a book based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's $5 million, five-year study on the future of the automobile, written by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos.

This book made the term lean production known worldwide. It has been translated into eleven languages and has been sold more than 600,000 times. A revised edition was published in 2007.

The authors

James P. Womack was a highly-regarded professor and authority on systems engineering at MIT. He went on to become the founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc. Co-authors of the book, Daniel Jones and Daniel Roos have also authored many other well-respected books on lean manufacturing and engineering techniques.

MIT Book Review

In his book review, MIT then-student wrote that the history of lean manufacturing began with artisans prior to the industrial revolution when standardized supplies were not yet available to enable large production runs. It wasn't until Henry Ford revolutionized mass production for his automobiles that made it possible for minimally-trained workers to assemble cars quickly and efficiently. Japanese auto manufacture, Toyota, modified the process into the first true "lean" method of production. They were able to eliminate much of the waste inherent in Ford's system, making smaller batches of parts to be used as needed as opposed to stocking larger quantities. Toyota also empowered its workers to improve the process and stop the line when issues and errors occurred. This new, lean method required communications to flow in both directions and increased quality while reducing time and costs. The authors, Womack, Jones and Roos, suggest that lean production can be used outside of automobile manufacturing by adapting its principals to traditional mass production of many kinds.^[1]

Amazon customer reviews

One Amazon customer provided the following summation, "This study of the world automotive industry by a group of MIT academics reaches the radical conclusion that the much vaunted Mercedes technicians are actually a throwback to the pre-industrial age, while Toyota is far ahead in costs and quality by building the automobiles correctly the first time. The lesson that it cost more to fix it than to build it correctly should be applicable to a lot of industries--not just manufacturing." Another reviewer added that although the primary research by the three MIT co-authors was from the 1980s, it wasn't until much later that American manufacturers began using lean techniques and that a new study is needed to incorporate the changing global marketplace. ^[2]

Further reading

• Roos, Daniel, Ph.D.; Womack, James P., Ph.D.; Jones, Daniel T.: The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production, Harper Perennial (November 1991), ISBN 0060974176, ISBN 978-0060974176

See also

• Lean manufacturing
• Automotive engineering

References