Lean in a High-Variability Business

Dr. Eduardo Lander received his doctorate in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (Advisor: Dr Liker). He then went to work for Toyota's R&D center in Brussels, Belgium. He has since left Toyota and is working as an independent consultant with Zingerman's Mail Order as one of his clients.Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan and President of Liker Lean Advisors. He is author of the international best-seller, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer, 2004 (26 languages, over 950,000 copies sold), and has coauthored nine other books about Toyota including Toyota Culture, The Toyota Product Development System, The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership (2011) and Developing Lean Leaders at all Levels: A Practical Guide (2014). In 2016 he published The Toyota Way to Service Excellence and coauthored a lean transformation business novel called Trenches. His articles and books have won thirteen Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence. In 2012 he was inducted into the Association of Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame and in 2016 inducted into the Shingo Academy.Tom Root is an entrepreneur who originally envisioned Zingeman's Mail Order and started it up as a co-partner and then founded the Maker Works as his second business. In 2002, Zingerman's Mail Order and Zingermans.com merged and Tom took on the role of Chief Financial Officer of the resulting business (known simply as Zingerman's Mail Order). As CFO, Tom has championed open book management and taken the lead on educating staff about the financial ins and outs of the business. In 2004, Tom was introduced to the concepts of Lean Manufacturing popularized by Toyota. Building on his experience with open book finance, Tom worked to bring the philosophy of continuous improvement and waste elimination to Mail Order. For the last 10 years Tom has been practicing Lean thinking though process improvement, class development and teaching.In 2008, Tom was inspired by the financial crisis to start Maker Works. Maker Works is 11,000 sq ft manufacturing facility that is operated like a health club. Individuals or businesses purchase memberships to have access to high-tech tools like laser cutters, 3D printers and CNC plasma cutters. The mission of Maker Works is to democratize the tools of manufacturing to foster job creation, community and self-sustainability.In September of 2014, Maker Works celebrated its 3-year anniversary. It has attracted more than 700 members, added 16,000 sq ft of tenant space and played a role in a handful of start-ups including Sight Machine, a venture funded computer vision start-up.