Product Description

"Who's Counting?", by Jerrold M. Solomon, is a business novel that, for the first time, explains how accounting and manufacturing personnel must develop a partnership to successfully achieve world class results. This novel takes readers on a successful "Lean Journey", and illustrates how to bring accounting practices into the 21st century in order to compete in today's global market. A must read for all those interested in successfully implementing lean accounting!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60259 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 248 pages

Roger Satin, Director - Maryland World Class Manufacturing Consortium
"Finally a book that addresses Lean Accounting! It’s about time!"

MaryPat Cooper, Lean Champion, Wiremold
"I can’t imagine implementing Lean without reading Who’s Counting.

Brian Maskell, President, BMA, Associates
"If you thought Manufacturing can implement Lean on its own, you better read this book."

Customer Reviews

I am impressed!
I'd just like to say that the book was hard to put down. As I was reading it I could find some areas that related. The reactions of people when they find out what they have been doing is "Muda". But what really captures my interest is that it shows how Lean Accounting can evlove with transforming the organization into a lean enterprise.

It gets quick to the point and shows how the character "Mike" approaches each of the meetings. Mike approaches with good questions and interesting answers. But he himself had some flaws (as in ticking off Fred a lot), but he came to terms with the people he was dealing with. We get frustrated when we are in an organization where everything starts all over. The conversations by each of the characters shows the frustuations each department can endure in the complexities of day to day operations.

It gives a good picture of how situations could be handled at a high level such as with Peter (CEO), Mike, & Fred (CFO). I enjoy how Mike pursuades Fred (& Fred's conversations with his wife Shiela)and the various departments (IT, Purchasing, Planning, Acctg, Production) into working together. I shows how important of a roll they play when they depend on each other to make things happen. Teamwork, just like a lean transformation itself. The characters are energized for change. They show such enthusiasm.

No journey of change is an easy one. It takes patience, learning, understanding, perserverance, and believing. I find the book well articulated, covers issues and points in a clear manner, as well as provide good humor. I give it 5 stars.

Steven K.

A fast, easy way to learn about lean but NOT lean accounting
This book is very useful but it does NOT provide enough insight as to what accounting department's should specifically do to support lean. The book is more about making accounting lean instead of what accounting should specifically do to support lean.

Who' Counting & Practical Lean Accounting: 1+1>2
"Who's Counting" and "Practical Lean Accounting" are two great books on lean accounting. I wondered some time ago, which one to read and I am glad that I could not decide, so I bought and read them both. They complement each other extremely well and each one conveys the lessons of lean accounting from a different angle.

"Practical Lean Accounting" is a well structured textbook, approaching lean accounting in a systemized way. Starting from straight-forward shop-floor measurements, like the day-by-the-hour report, it gradually immerses the reader into more demanding topics, like value stream costing or lean performance measurement, culminating in the thorough description of the Sales, Operations and Financial Planning (SOFP) process, which is the way, how an entire lean enterprise is planned, controlled and measured. Lean practitioners looking for specific answers to particular questions will find it easy to navigate through the book. People with the luxury of time for reading it cover to cover will also like it, due to the gradual increase in the complexity of the topics and the many references to other chapters.

"Who's Counting" focuses more on the human side of turning the vision of lean accounting into reality. The novel format is the best way to illustrate, how strong the resistance against change will be and from how many corners of the organization it will attack back. Knowing what to do and knowing why is not enough, the issue is not capturing people's brains. The real challenge is conquering their hearts, while tearing down decades worth of wrong beliefs, bad trade-offs and political game-playing. Mike, the hero of the book teaches us through his own mistakes, that patience, tactfulness and respect for people is more helpful, then acting like a bull in a china shop. The reward is the enthusiastic desire of fellows to go his way and take ownership of the new processes. He even manages to turn Fred, a CFO who has to recognize, that most of what he built during his career was wrong, to use the 3 years until his retirement for becoming the most enthusiastic advocate of change!

Both books provide the reader with insight and incite self-reflection about "the way, we do things". There is hardly any chapter without a sacred cow being slaughtered, however this will strike the reader as plain common sense, due to the thorough description of the reasons. Deeply engrained management practices, such as approval routings, full absorption overhead allocation, standard costing or departmental budgeting will seem ridiculous, once the reader starts to open the eyes to see their fundamentally wrong assumptions.

These books will make You hate many of Your current processes!