The Lean Accounting Summit was held in Orlando last month, and the AME Annual Conference will be in Dallas later this month. Both will have record attendance. The quality and size of these conferences continue to increase, indicating a recognition that lean manufacturing land lean enterprise methods are required to remain competitive in our global economy.

We have added a Tools and Assessments section to the website, where we'll have a list of free tools to help assess your organization.  The first assessment tool is Brian Maskell's Journey to Agility Questionaire, which creates a very detailed snapshot of the lean and agile competency of an organization.

I also encourage you to visit the Evolving Excellence blog.  Our posts have been picked up by several mainstream media outlets, and we have also added several new features such as audio podcasting.

As always we appreciate your support for our mission to spread manufacturing excellence knowledge. Click here for more information on sponsorships.

- Kevin Meyer

• Toyota outlines its plans to grow profits
  Detroit Free Press, United States - Oct 7, 2006
• More profits with lean manufacturing
  Express Outlook, Mauritius - Sep 25, 2006
• Lean proves mean in drug manufacturing
  In-PharmaTechnologist.com, France - Sep 12, 2006
• Being lean not about being mean
  ChronicleHerald.ca, Canada - Oct 5, 2006
• Homemade - in Taunton
  Taunton Gazette, MA - 20 hours ago
• North Carolina plant finds $2M in productivity gains with lean
  Reliable Plant Magazine, OK - Oct 5, 2006
• How AMD bakes its 65 nano Barcelona cakes
  Inquirer, UK - Oct 1, 2006
• Supply Chain All the Way: Strengthening the Weakest Link
  Supply & Demand Chain Executive, AZ - Oct 2, 2006
• Census Of Manufacturers -- What's Working For US Manufacturers
  Industry Week - Sep 26, 2006
• Suppliers join the design huddle
  Purchasing.com, MA - Sep 7, 2006
• Learn How to Play by the Lean Rules
  Assembly Magazine, IL - Sep 12, 2006
• OSHA: enforcer or facilitator?
  Manufacturer.com, UK - Sep 28, 2006
  

Visit the Superfactory Events Calendar for the full list of events.

Life's Little Lean Accounting Instruction Book
by Brian Maskell & Susan Lilly - $12.99

365 Day of Self-Help for Lean-Thinking Accountants and Managers. You will be surprised, we dare say challenged, but you will think. Think about assumptions you make every day. Think about your role in the company's lean transformation. Think about the essential value you can bring to the effort. This little book will give you inspiration. It will give you continuous food for thought. It will challenge you to be a change agent. It might also make you laugh!

More information

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Myth-Busting Using Value Stream Maps
by Bob Emiliani

The value stream map is one of many ways that Lean-minded people organize data to yield accurate information about what’s going on in order to initiate actions to improve a process. While we should not over-emphasize value stream maps – they are not the beginning and end of Lean – they do provide a lot of useful information. But they can also provide important information beyond our current understanding of material and information flows.

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