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LEAN ACCOUNTING, BEST PRACTICES FOR SUSTAINABLE INTEGRATION
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Why are established lean enterprises so durably successful while so many at- tempts to become lean fail? The answer lies in the Anna Karenina principle, an extension of Tolstoy’s observation: “Happy families are all alike; every un- happy family is unhappy in its own way.” In general, this means that a defi- ciency in any one of a number of factors critical to overall system function dooms the new relationship. Human interactions with nature are replete with examples of this principle. When an otherwise healthy species of plant or an- imal is introduced into a new ecosystem, the new species must harmonize with many critical subsystems—longitude and latitude, rainfall, terrain, predators, competitors, and sources of nutrition. More often than not, the introduction of a new species fails because the new ecosystem cannot support the alien life form, or the newly introduced species significantly disrupts the balanced sub- systems of the finely tuned native ecosystem. Unlike the balanced scorecard, activity-based costing and management, quality management, or many of the other fine tools that can be integrated into the overall enterprise ecosystem, lean is an ecosystem unto itself—an entirely integrated set of subsystems (like a good marriage) that cannot be adopted in a piecemeal fashion to manage a limited number of enterprise activities. An enterprise might choose to become more lean, but its managers should not ex- pect to become lean by borrowing here and there from an integrated system where all practices are interdependent. No single person can master the many details of the many interrelated lean subsystems, so this book maintains an appropriate focus: to provide perspec- tives on the ways that established lean enterprises treat accounting and perfor- mance measurement practices as subsystems that support an integrated approach to product and service delivery. Each chapter addresses important elements of these two practices. The best way to introduce this book is to characterize its authors and define the premises that guide their experience and writing, and the best way to introduce the authors and the core theme of this book is with its first premise.
Joe Stenzel - Personal Name
978-0-470-08728-2
NONE
Accounting
English
2007
1-330
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