BMA Inc. / Lean Accounting Brian Maskell is president of BMA Inc., a lean accounting consulting firm based in Cherry Hill, N.J. He discusses the many changes companies must make in their financial controls in order to facilitate a lean conversion. Here are some of the questions he answered: As companies adopt lean manufacturing techniques are they becoming more acclimated to changing their accounting systems? What are some of the common accounting problems? Do lean accounting methods disclose waste in the accounting process itself? Does a lean transformation lead to a power struggle between the production people and the finance people? Is there a tendency of not being able to measure the right things? Do financial people ever lead or spearhead a lean initiative? Have the financial software programs like ERP and supply chain management systems hindered or helped the conversion toward lean? Have the software programs prevalent in industry today provided the tools people need for this transition to a lean accounting system or have they made it harder? How hard is it to take the financial systems and reconfigure them to lean? Is better to take a "Roundup" type of approach and start with an entirely new accounting system? Is it self evident which transactions get eliminated? What are the key issues for implementing lean accounting methods? What are some examples of measurements needed at the production level? What are you trying to measure on a corporate-wide scale? If a company is really committed to a lean conversion, how long will it take to start showing positive financial returns? Are there immediate financial benefits to reducing inventory? Can you lean out all the transactions from a traditional manufacturer? As companies move down the lean implementation path, do other accounting obstacles become prevalent? Is there an overriding philosophy for lean accounting? Do the financial tools exist to keep track of value-stream costs? Are the business schools teaching lean accounting methods to accounting and finance majors? If companies adopt lean accounting systems do they reduce their payroll within their accounting departments? Who has the ear of the CEO? The production guy or the finance guy? To view questions from other interviews in Lean Machines, Click Here. Click Here to order a copy of Lean Machines.