The classic nationally bestselling book that first articulated the principles of lean
production with a new foreword and afterword by the authors. When The Machine That Changed the
World was first published in 1990 Toyota was half the size of General Motors. Twenty years
later Toyota passed GM as the world's largest auto maker. This management classic was the first
book to reveal Toyota's lean production system that is the basis for its enduring success.
Authors Womack Jones and Roos provided a comprehensive description of the entire lean system.
They exhaustively documented its advantages over the mass production model pioneered by General
Motors and predicted that lean production would eventually triumph. Indeed they argued that it
would triumph not just in manufacturing but in every value-creating activity from health care
to retail to distribution. Today The Machine That Changed the World provides enduring and
essential guidance to managers and leaders in every industry seeking to transform traditional
enterprises into exemplars of lean success.
