Company Profile

Company Description:

The Lean Enterprise Institute Inc., is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in Boston, MA, with a mission to make things better through lean thinking and practice. Founded in 1997 by management expert James P. Womack, PhD, LEI conducts research, teaches educational workshops, publishes books and ebooks, runs conferences, and shares practical information about lean thinking and practice.

Compared with traditional "think" tanks, we are a "do" tank. We carefully develop hypotheses about lean thinking and experiment to see which approaches work best in the real world. We then write up and teach what we discover, providing new methods for organizational transformation.

We strive to answer the simple question of every manager, "What can I do on Monday morning to make a difference in my organization?" And, by creating a strong lean community through our website and public events we try to give managers the courage to become lean change agents.

Our mission is to “Make things better, through lean thinking and practice.”

We carry out our mission through value streams: Lean Education, Lean Learning Materials, Co-Learning Partnerships, the Lean Summit conferences, and our website lean.org. In addition, we exchange information across the world through the Lean Global Network, consisting of more than a dozen nonprofit organizations similar to LEI, sharing a common mission in different countries.

Any company, executive, manager, team leader, or team member wishing to join the transformation to a lean way of creating value is welcome in our Lean Community. We exist to support everyone who is starting or continuing the lean journey.