Thanks to blog reader Alan for test-driving the LeanBlog Message Board. He posted this question under the “Standard Work and Kaizen” discussion. A nice thing about the Message Board was that Alan was able to share a kaizen spreadsheet tool for download — for you to comment on or even use yourself, I suppose.

Please visit the board if you’d like to comment on Alan’s question, I’ll repeat the first part of it here:

Hello fellow lean bloggers:

I would be very interested to find out what tools (either software or written forms) other companies are using to track current work standards, and documenation to improve the standards. I recently read a very good paper by Steven Spear and H. Kent Bowen entitled ” Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System”. In the paper, the authers site 4 rule for TPS:

(visit the Message Board to read more).

About LeanBlog.org: Mark Graban is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “lean healthcare” methodology, focused on improving quality and patient safety, improving access, reducing costs, and fully engaging healthcare professionals. He is also the Chief Improvement Officer for KaiNexus.