Janney Montgomery Scott LLC Cliff Ransom is Director of Research at Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, the Philadelphia-based investment firm founded in 1933. He provides a startling view from the investment community into the subject of lean and excellence in manufacturing. Here are some of the questions he answered: Why are there so few financial analysts following companies based upon their lean practices? Is there any pressure from Wall Street for industrial companies to adopt lean? Have you seen recent examples of companies adopting lean successfully? People are saying Six Sigma is a fad not worth pursuing. This was expressed in an article in [the January 22, 2001 edition of] Fortune [entitled "Why You Can Safely Ignore Six Sigma"] saying that Six Sigma has no payoff for investors. What do you think? Is visiting a factory one of the best things an analyst can do to determine the viability of a company? Are the companies that understand lean long-term buys because it takes a long time to implement? What happens to companies that haven't adopted lean? Does an economic downturn spark an interest in lean? Is lean viewed as another trend, especially since there have been so many lately, such as TQM, reengineering, re-reengineering, agile manufacturing and B2B trade exchanges? Do you have any examples of companies that adopted lean and got it wrong or just did not have the patience to implement it? Is it a good sign if a company hires Shingijutsu? From an investor's point of view, what are the difficulties companies face in adopting a lean business model? Would the creation of a lean portfolio fund be a good financial opportunity? To view questions from other interviews in Lean Machines, Click Here. Click Here to order a copy of Lean Machines.