Wiremold Corp. Art Byrne is President and CEO of Wiremold. He discusses the 10-year journey of Wiremold and how lean is far more than just implementing various tools. Here are some of the questions he answered: What advice do you have for companies that are considering adopting a lean manufacturing strategy? Is the place to start a lean implementation in the production area of a company? What do you think about companies that try to adopt lean by implementing just-in-time production practices? What is the most common cause of failure among companies trying to implement lean? How important is it to have buy-in from the CEO? More companies are outsourcing their production or moving it to Mexico or China. Is that a good way to reduce costs and stay competitive? Is there a temptation for Wiremold to move production to a place where you pay people $1.25 an hour, and potentially really whip your competition? Is there any way to make a lean implementation easier than it is? Are the successes achieved by Wiremold or Toyota enough to motivate more companies to adopt a lean system? How important is it for you to have an outside consultant involved in the implementation? Are you still using Shingijutsu at Wiremold? Is there an easy or fast way to implement a lean business system? Wiremold is now 10 years into the process. Have the barriers changed over time? How do you get people to take the next step? How do you get them to understand that there are another 20 steps after that? Do you see the same results of a kaizen the eighth time through? Do workers rebel against having to do so much more? Do you still spend time on the factory floor? Is it easy to transform a company that you've purchased? Is it inevitable that lean will become the operational mode of production in the United States? How hard is it to sell to your customers the idea of having them order from you every day? How able are electrical distribution customers at handling a lean replenishment system? Is there a good MRP system that deals with the lean approach? Are companies better off junking their MRP systems? Does kanban migrate from being something other than cards? Is there a good kanban software program? Can the Internet provide leverage in the lean system? Is the Internet an enabler of lean? Is your inventory turn figure the key measure for your business? Is there a good number for inventory turns? Did your life change after your story was told by James Womack in the book Lean Thinking? To view questions from other interviews in Lean Machines, Click Here. Click Here to order a copy of Lean Machines.