Power in knowing how to use books in study groups

In 1981, I led a two-week study mission to Japan. Jack Warne, VP Manufacturing, subsequently president of Omark Industries, was included. 

During the first week, I was embarrassed as Jack continually said, "I don't see what the Japanese are doing that is so special. My Omark plants are better." 

On Tuesday of the second week, we visited Nippon Denso, a large supplier to Toyota and Jack's attitude completely turned around as he saw a magnificent plant with quick change over, mix-modeling and other Toyota techniques. At the end of the visit, "Mr. Ohta, plant manager, gave us a sheet of paper written was, "The Study of the Toyota Production System by Shigeo Shingo published by Japan Management Association (JMA)."  I didn't know really what that meant but on arriving into Tokyo from Nagoya, I called JMA and found out it was a new book in English.  I asked my group of around 12 people who wanted a copy of the book; only Jack wanted one.  Both Jack and I did the exact same thing,; we read the book on the airplane coming home from Japan and we ordered 500 copies; I for my newsletter subscribers; Jack to give to his managers and engineers.

I subsequently, sold over 35,000 copies to my newsletter subscribers and Omark became the best JIT/Lean company in America. 

From INC. Magazine:
May 1, 1984

Why Everybody's Talking About "just In Time"

A new approach to reducing costly inventories may seem like a lot of common sense, but for many U.S. companies, it is revolutionizing the way they run their plants.
Go there and read this May 1984 article: (https://www.inc.com/magazine/19840301/9715.html) and see what Omark did from reading Shingo's books in study groups. Then ask yourself now in 2019 are you as good with your Lean efforts as Omark was over 35 years ago.  And if not, ask yourself, why not?
First, Jack had every manager and engineer trained in Value Analysis/Value Engineering and then simply asked the 500 people to read the book in study groups; one person read a chapter and taught it to their group; asking, "How can we use this new information at Omark?
Omark became the best JIT company in America and saved millions from just reading a book.  Why can't you do the same?