Lean has a longer and more colorful history than most of us think, with many Lean concepts predating Womack and Jones’s books on the subject. In fact, according to my research, many of the Lean concepts have been around for over 2500 years, and date back to ancient China. In the twentieth century, Henry Ford discussed ideas that we’d now describe as Lean, such as waste, teams, developing the people in his plants, and more. In fact, Ford’s work was one of the sources (along with US supermarkets and Japanese samurai) that Toyota looked to when they developed their Toyota Production System.

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In this article Rick highlights 3 dimensions of Lean CFOs should be familiar with.

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“You can’t sell out of an empty wagon,” is a favorite saying among salespeople, meaning that you have to have inventory (usually lots of it) to quickly serve your customers. But it just isn’t true! In fact, if you have a successful Just In Time (JIT) supply chain management process, often the less inventory you have, the better you can service your customers.

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Accurate, timely accounts are not only important, they can mean the difference between success and failure in the business world.

Four out of five new businesses fail within the first five years, and of those 60 percent are profitable, according to the Professional Association of Small Business Accountants. One of the main reasons is “payment terms”–the time between when a service is provided or a liability incurred and when money is actually exchanged, the association says.

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Are you ready to sell?

Business owners must have their affairs in order to attract a potential buyer. The combination of our recent economic recovery and the long-term investor portfolio shift to business acquisitions puts the owners of well run businesses in a good position to earn a premium over previous historical trends for selling businesses.

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