Earlier this year Mark over at the Lean Blog did a poll of the "Best Lean Companies." After over 800 votes the results were pretty much as expected, at least for the top half. I don't agree with a few of them, but then again I'm no expert. Just for kicks I did some research on the stock performance of the top 20 (obviously not including the two or three private companies), ranking them by quarter and year to date with comparisons to the S&P/Dow/Nasdaq, and came up with the following:
2007-Q1 |
2007-Q2 |
2007-Q3 |
2007-YTD | |||||||
| Deere | 14.3% |
.. | Intel | 24.1% |
.. | Deere | 22.9% |
.. | Deere | 64.8% |
| Parker-Hannifin | 12.3% |
Textron | 22.6% |
Parker-Hannifin | 14.2% |
Parker-Hannifin | 49.1% | |||
| Illinois Tool | 11.7% |
Caterpillar | 16.8% |
Textron | 13.0% |
Textron | 42.8% | |||
| Tesco PLC | 9.8% |
Parker-Hannifin | 13.4% |
Illinois Tool | 10.1% |
Intel | 23.8% | |||
| Steelcase | 9.5% |
Deere | 11.1% |
Danaher | 9.5% |
Illinois Tool | 18.3% | |||
| Caterpillar | 9.3% |
DOW | 8.5% |
Boeing | 9.2% |
Tesco PLC | 16.9% | |||
| Nike | 7.3% |
General Electric | 8.3% |
Intel | 8.9% |
Danaher | 12.0% | |||
| HON | 3.4% |
Boeing | 8.2% |
General Electric | 8.2% |
Caterpillar | 11.9% | |||
| Kimberly-Clark | 0.8% |
NASDAQ | 7.5% |
Kimberly-Clark | 5.0% |
NASDAQ | 7.5% | |||
| NASDAQ | 0.3% |
S&P 500 | 5.8% |
Tesco PLC | 5.0% |
DOW | 4.2% | |||
| S&P 500 | 0.2% |
Danaher | 5.7% |
NASDAQ | 3.8% |
S&P 500 | 1.6% | |||
| Boeing | 0.1% |
Illinois Tool | 5.0% |
DOW | 3.6% |
General Electric | 1.2% | |||
| DOW | -0.9% |
Honda | 4.1% |
S&P 500 | 1.6% |
Boeing | 0.8% | |||
| Danaher | -1.4% |
Southwest | 1.4% |
Nike | 0.6% |
Kimberly-Clark | 0.4% | |||
| Southwest | -4.0% |
Toyota | -1.8% |
Caterpillar | 0.2% |
Southwest | -10.4% | |||
| Textron | -4.2% |
Kimberly-Clark | -2.3% |
Southwest | -0.7% |
Honda | -15.4% | |||
| Toyota | -4.6% |
Tesco PLC | -5.8% |
Steelcase | -2.8% |
Steelcase | -16.1% | |||
| General Electric | -5.0% |
Steelcase | -7.0% |
Toyota | -7.2% |
HON | -17.5% | |||
| Intel | -5.5% |
HON | -10.7% |
Honda | -8.1% |
Toyota | -18.5% | |||
| Honda | -11.8% |
Nike | -45.1% |
HON | -12.2% |
Nike | -35.6% | |||
There are obviously some interesting observations. The market overall has been a rollercoaster, and even Toyota has had a rough year. Only a handful of companies actually outperformed the major indices. At the same time we don't want to get sucked into the short-term mindset that bedevils lean improvements or a focus on traditional measures of value. There are a lot of games that are played between the time a sale is realized and when the effect of the sale hits the bottom line... and especially to when that bottom line is translated to a stock price.
But it is still an interesting, albeit admittedly flawed, analysis. There are some companies on the current top 20 that I don't believe belong there, and some (such as Wabtec) that I believe are missing.
Let's try this again, looking forward to 2008. What lean-driven companies will be tops in 2008? We'll lock the top 20 at the end of December, and then Evolving Excellence will report the performance and any notable news. Here's the poll: