Years ago I read a small book by an old-time foundryman. He wrote on almost everything one needs to know about getting started in foundry work — how to build furnaces for smelting different types of metals, the right sand to use for casting, how to estimate melt temperatures, how to build and use core boxes, and so on.

In the last chapter, covering the business aspects of foundry work, he wrote something that stuck with me: “Foundries,” he said, “don’t make money. Foundries make castings. Money is the by-product of well-made castings.”

Many business people never learn this simple lesson. We are in business to serve the customer. As I have written so many times before, if you forget why you show up to work everyday — to serve the customer — you can’t claim to be Lean.