Value Stream Management is a new strategic and operational approach to the data capture, analysis, planning and implementation of effective change within the core cross‐functional or cross‐company processes required to achieve a truly lean enterprise. This paper describes the method in detail including a summary of the previous Value Stream Mapping approach and its weaknesses. The new approach involves a strategic review of a business or supply chain's activities, the delimitation of key processes and the mapping of these processes. A description of how to analyze and synthesize these data is followed by a section on an approach to planning strategic and operational change together with a framework in which to do this. The benefits and limitations of the new approach are summarized.

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During the 1980s and 1990s there were numerous exhortations from politicians, academics, consultants, managers and the media for companies to become “leaner and fitter” as a recipe for improving the productivity and international competitiveness of manufacturing industry.

Describes an expert system which goes some way towards providing detailed advice for implementing Just‐in‐Time (JIT) concepts in a manufacturing environment. Advises managers as to which techniques should be realized in order to begin implementation of JIT, or to achieve further improvement if a commitment has already been made to JIT implementation. Specifically, focuses on small‐to‐medium manufacturing companies producing high volume discrete components. The advice is based on an expanded two‐stage process for JIT implementation.

Describes software which provides a tutorial introduction to activity-based costing and highlights the difference between it and conventional cost accounting.

Here productivity is discussed with special reference to its measurement, especially partial as opposed to total. Partial productivity measurement in turn involves productivity accounting and the use of grids to evaluate operations without overly detailed quantification. Its use as a strategic tool and its merits in relation to other well established, more conceptual approaches to strategy and marketing are examined.