Meeting in Paris with Pen Pals Philip Marris and Christian Hohmann

Philip Marris and Christian Hohmann have been on-line pen pals of mine for years, but we had never actually met. My visit to Paris this week was the opportunity to fix this and trade manufacturing war stories for four hours while having dinner at the landmark La Coupole restaurant.

Both Philip and Christian have been consulting as long as I have and are authors of books about Lean in French. Philip is an Englishman who speaks French without even a trace of an accent, and writes in French. He describes his own book,  Le Management Par Les Contraintes, as “very boring,” because, unlike Eli Goldratt’s The Goal, it is focussed on technical nitty-gritty rather than entertainment. As I told him, this is my favorite kind.

Christian Hohmann has written the following four books:

• Lean Management : Outils, méthodes, retours d’expériences, questions/réponses (Lean Management: Tools, Methods, Case Studies, Q&A, 2012)
• Techniques de productivité : Comment gagner des points de performance pour les managers et les encadrants (Productiviti Techniques: How to gain performance points for managers and leaders, 2009)
• Guide pratique des 5S et du management visuel : Pour les managers et les encadrants (Practical guide to 5S and Visual Management for managers and leaders, 2010)
• Audit combiné qualité / supply chain : Sécuriser ses relations client-fournisseurs (Combined quality/supply chain audits: securing customer-supplier relationships, 2010)

He has also posted 50 short videos on Youtube. I first approached Christian 15 years ago, when writing Lean Assembly. I had found a picture of an electronics assembly line that he had posted. I wanted to use it in the book, and it had some features I did not understand. I asked him and he gave both the answer and permission to use the picture. When I thanked him this week, he had forgotten about it.