The Lean CFO

Book excerpt: This book is not about debits, credits, or accounting theory. Instead, it describes how a chief financial officer (CFO) becomes a Lean CFO by leading a company in developing and deploying a Lean management system. The finance team, business executives, and Lean leaders will all benefit from its forward-thinking improvement approach. Explaining why the CFO role is so critical for companies adopting a Lean business strategy, The Lean CFO: Architect of the Lean Management System illustrates the process of building and integrating a Lean management system into the overall Lean business strategy. It describes why CFOs should move their companies away from performance measures based on traditional manufacturing practices and into a Lean performance measurement system. In addition, it explains how to integrate a Lean management system with a Lean business strategy to drive financial success. Describes the logic behind why a Lean management system must replace a traditional management accounting system Discusses how flow can drive the financial success of Lean Demonstrates the need for constructing a value stream capacity measurement system Explains how to break your company away from using standard costing to run your business The book explains why you must move your company into value stream accounting, which reports your internal financial information by the real profit centers of your business, your value streams. It describes the strategic aspects of making money from a Lean business strategy and also details how to modify your enterprise resource planning system to support Lean rather than hinder it.