Why I Wrote These Books
The content of these books has been decades in the making. My goal has always been to distill more than thirty years of hands-on experience in just-in-time apparel and footwear manufacturing into a practical and strategic body of knowledge. These books present every essential topic required to build a Lean-Agile manufacturing system specifically for labor-intensive industries—something that simply does not exist elsewhere.
In capital-intensive sectors, Lean-Agile practices are often defined by automation, robotics, and advanced digital systems. But in the labor-intensive world of apparel and footwear manufacturing, those models do not translate. Here, success is human-centric. Agility, responsiveness, and performance depend not on machines, but on how people work, think, collaborate, and adapt in real time. That’s why these books focus on workforce behavior, supervisory adaptability, system thinking, and leadership as the foundation of factory transformation.
From the beginning of my career, I was influenced by Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of scientific management. Following his path, I began observing apparel/footwear (AF) work behavior, comparing it with international business trends and manufacturing excellence in other industries. What became painfully clear was that our sector lacks any tailored Lean-Agile methodology, tools, or systems—and that is a fundamental barrier to competitiveness.
Over the years, I poured immense energy into researching what drives world-class manufacturing and why the AF industry continues to fall behind. My mission became clear: to build the first comprehensive approach for Lean-Agile transformation in labor-intensive settings, grounded in practical methods and real-world realities.
Unfortunately, progress was slow. Many of the individuals I trained used the opportunity to pursue personal career goals rather than drive organizational change. But this is no surprise—true transformation is impossible without strong leadership and a culture of commitment to continuous improvement. That is precisely what these books aim to address.
They were written to reach a new generation of leaders—those who are ready to challenge the status quo and lift this industry to a new standard of operational excellence.
For over two decades, the apparel sector has been flooded with articles, training, and webinars claiming to promote Lean or continuous improvement. Yet nearly all are rooted in the Toyota Production System (TPS), a model born from automotive manufacturing—wholly unfit for labor-intensive operations. TPS assumes automation, precision machinery, and stable production. That is not our world.
Labor-intensive industries require a different logic. Agility must be embedded in human systems: adaptive line teams, skilled supervisors, visual management, cross-functional alignment, and systems thinking that turns variability into opportunity. These books present the only integrated system designed specifically for this context.
Too often, I’ve watched factories chase more orders or invest in new machines without fixing the fundamentals. But if a factory is losing money due to poor systems, weak supervision, and untrained line behavior, no expansion will help. Real transformation begins with understanding performance, identifying waste, and building capability across every layer of the organization—starting with people. This is the foundation of Lean-Agile manufacturing in labor-intensive environments. Not technology. Not capital. People.
That’s the revolution these books are built to lead.
I urge every apparel and footwear industry leader to read them thoroughly—to study the systems, tools, and practices presented—and to understand the steps required to build lasting agility, resilience, and efficiency in today’s highly volatile global marketplace.
—Dr. Charles Dagher
