While payrolls have been slashed and inventories remain lean, top line growth has been more subdued.

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As Toyota discovered with lean manufacturing, production-line workers, given the chance, can come up with plenty of good ideas to improve productivity.

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The bottom line is that utilities need to get lean and mean if they want to survive the daunting challenges they will face over the next 50 years.

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Tim, on the other hand, understands that success comes down to whether one of his 50, 000 front-line associates with a few discretionary minutes decides to lean against a wall or clean tables.

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To this end, it has introduced lean manufacturing techniques in its Seattle factories, even bringing in a moving conveyor line to streamline aircraft assembly.

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The Lexus' whirligig is familiar from the Toyota Camry and Avalon hybrids: a lean-burning Atkinson-cycle, 2.5-liter in-line four-cylinder (156 hp) coupled with two electric motors, one a 141-hp traction motor, the other a starter-generator.

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