Dr. Hall is Professor Emeritus, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University (USA) Having worked in engineering and manufacturing, in 1985 he became a founding member of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence, and for 22 years edited its publication, Target. In 1982, he wrote Zero Inventories, the first of many “lean” books and articles. Before that, his interest was in R&D and innovation, so he gravitated to “next-generation” technology, operations, and business practices. In 1992, he wrote The Soul of the Enterprise, a critique of the system that led to an “unending book,” Compression. He contends that we need a major shift in business and economic practices to meet our challenges of the 21st century, and proposes a general pathway – Compression Thinking. To that end, he now is chairman of the newly formed Compression Institute.