Student and Professor Win Excellence in Lean Accounting Awards from the Lean Enterprise Institute.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A university professor and a student have won Excellence in Lean Accounting Awards from the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), a nonprofit management research center.

Gloria McVay, Ph.D., an associate professor of accounting at Winona State University, MN, and Chad Wonderling, a Winona senior studying accounting, received the awards at the third annual Lean Accounting Summit, Sept. 28, 2007, in Orlando, FL. Professor Peter Ward, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Management Sciences at The Ohio State University, presented the awards on behalf of LEI.

Ward also is director of the Lean Education Academic Network (LEAN), a nonprofit consortium of university professors and managers from business and industry dedicated to bringing lean management principles into higher education. Members share teaching materials and knowledge through collaboration, conferences, networking, and a web site at www.teachinglean.org . LEI helped launch LEAN three years ago.

Both McVay and Wonderling were recognized because they attended last year's Lean Accounting Summit then applied what they had learned in the classroom, Ward said. Wonderling gave presentations on lean accounting to introductory level accounting classes and participated in an independent study of the impact of lean management principles on traditional cost accounting systems. McVay, who was Wonderling's mentor, developed a new course on lean accounting.

Organizers of the annual Lean Accounting Summit said the lean accounting movement seeks a shift from traditional cost accounting practices to practices that accurately measure and motivate companies implementing lean management principles.

The shift is needed because traditional cost accounting does not accurately reflect the performance gains made when companies launch a lean transformation. For example, traditional financial statements do not accurately reflect a reduction in inventory, cycle time, or new found capacity in operations caused by a lean transformation. Traditional accounting practices also motivate the wrong behaviors in companies pursuing lean. For example, conventional efficiency metrics can motivate management to create needless inventory.

About the Lean Enterprise Institute

Based in Cambridge, MA, the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit education, publishing, conferencing, and management research center founded in 1997 by management expert James P. Womack, PhD. LEI helps organizations transform themselves into lean enterprises. Its workshops and workbooks teach lean techniques like value-stream mapping, lean manufacturing, and strategy deployment. Its management seminars and books help managers and executives develop the leadership behaviors that sustain lean enterprises. Its conferences showcase firms making lean breakthroughs. And its Lean Enterprise Partners research program with a small number of enterprises tests new approaches to lean management. The Lean Global Network, organized by LEI, has 12 nonprofit global affiliates in South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. For more information visit LEI at http://www.lean.org.