Clear Run is a manufacturing company, but the techniques employed are applicable to service and not-for-profit organizations as well. Consider this: only fifteen percent of the people in a manufacturing company directly change a product with their own hands, or tend a machine that changes a product. That means the other eighty-five percent are in service jobs. They are dealing with customers, making up schedules, moving things from point A to point B, doing the books, planning for the future, creating new things, purchasing materials, training people, writing reports... all the activities that people in service organizations do.

The lessons of Clear Run can be applied to very small companies and huge conglomerates. Small companies might take only nine weeks to do what Clear Run will take twelve weeks to do, and conglomerates simply need to apply the process to individual sections of the company, with 2,000 people or fewer, and no more than five layers of management.

The story about Carl and Clear Run is merely a guide that shows how one leader applies a 15-part method to his organization. By the end of the implementation, Continuous Improvement should be as integral to your organization as breathing and eating are to your life.

With these books I hope to instill this passion in you. I want you to kick down the door of complacency and seize the power of Continuous Improvement. Once you start to solve problems that have stymied you for years, once you seize seemingly unobtainable opportunities, once you witness the culture change that takes place, and see everyone looking forward to coming to work, you will become a believer as well.