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The article deals with the implementation of lean principles by U.S. businesses using value stream mapping, which analyzes the entire value stream for a product from the raw material to the finished state. It presents the calculation of the percentage of value-added time and the inventory efficiency for manufacturing, transactional and administrative processes. It discusses the concept of activity efficiency, as well as if it applies to a work cell. It presents a diagram showing an analysis of a primed process.

The article discusses how to handle project justification to avoid the dispproval of a manufacturing project. According to the author, detailing the justification requires a lot of homework because it is the return on investment (ROI) of the project and project leaders must determine the ROI on the efficiency and effectiveness between current and future processes. It is said that it is important to keep track of running time, down time, cycle time, scrap and failure mode and to quantify the control in order to calculate the potential benefit of the project.