A sensei is a member of a class of consultants who are different from the typical promoters of the latest management fad. Sensei is the Japanese word for teacher. (The plural in Japanese is sensei tachi, but sensei is typically used in English for both the singular and plural nouns.) Kaizen sensei speak the language of waste and how to eliminate it. They will tell you how to eliminate it now, not yesterday and not tomorrow. With decades of experience at their disposal, sensei can quickly use wisdom and creativity to jump-start the journey to lean, world-class production.

Sensei do not carry laptop computers or make fancy color presentations. They will examine your processes with you. They will tell you over and over again, "Spend no money, add no people, and create no additional space."

Who are these extraordinary people, and what qualifies them? A sensei is a master teacher of world-class change, one who produces results on the factory floor. A handful of such people helped bring Japanese industry to world-class levels, and although these individuals are now in their sixties or older, they continue to help companies around the world eliminate waste. They don't arrive on your doorstep with a quick fix for anything. They come to change the way you think about how you run your business. They look for "concrete heads" people stuck in the rut of traditional operations, people who say "we've always done it like that" or "we can't...