The how-to books and tools for design and operation of profitable jobshops are significantly fewer in number than those written for Lean Manufacturing for assembly line-type facilities. Here is a sample of challenging implementation roadblocks that, if workable solutions were to exist for them, could serve as the foundations for a guidebook on “Jobshop Lean”:

• How does a jobshop segment its product mix into categories such as “Runners”, “Repeaters” and “Strangers”? Do viable computer-oriented methods exist, such as Product-Quantity-Routing Analysis, Group Technology and Product-Process Matrix Clustering, capable of analyzing a large database of anywhere between 500 to 5000+ routings?
• How does a jobshop identify and implement, not just a single “pilot cell”, but all potential cells for different families of parts that may exist in its large product mix? What does it do about the “cats and dogs” in its product portfolio?
• How does a jobshop develop a self-motivated workforce knowledgeable in Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering skills to seek out and eliminate muda in administrative and production processes?
• How does a jobshop adopt, or adapt, the essentials of Lean Thinking, Theory Of Constraints, Quick Response Manufacturing, Demand Flow Technology, etc.
• When demand forecasts are unreliable or non-existent?  
• When suppliers may not be prepared to deliver JIT?
• When equipment must be multi-function, and not right-sized, to compensate for a small  multi-skilled workforce?  
• When customers could be here today but gone tomorrow?  
• When drawings, route sheets, inspection plans, gauges, tools, etc. for past (or new) orders need to be retrieved (or made from scratch) on a routine basis?  
• How does a jobshop define and distill its “core manufacturing competencies” into a guidebook that its sales staff could use to accept, evaluate or reject new orders based on past cost/benefit performance measures?
• How does a jobshop implement Finite Capacity Scheduling without purchasing expensive software, since Drum-Buffer-Rope and CONWIP scheduling have been known to succeed in such facilities?
• How does a jobshop train its material handlers to perform shopfloor scheduling and order progressing functions, similar to the water striders who are employed in the Toyota Production System?
• How does a jobshop adopt real-time inventory tracking technology utilized in warehouses and distribution centers to achieve pseudo-JIT operations?

There are many such differences between the low-variety high-volume Toyota Production System (TPS) and the high-variety low-volume jobshop and custom manufacturer.