Monthly Archives: March 2010

A Lean Urban Legend/Myth Busted?

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Last month, in the midst of Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda's appearance in front of Congress, there was a little sidebar in the USA Today...

Interview with Prof. Steven J. Spear on Applications of Lean in Healthcare

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Episode #87 is a discussion with a returning guest, Steven J. Spear, DBA author of the outstanding book Chasing the Rabbit: How Market Leaders...

Guest Post: Stamp Out Sugarcoating

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Sugar-coated messages are in bad taste.   In survey after survey, people ask for straight talk on all issues. They don't want artificially-sweetened words...

Dr. Deming – “More Relevant Than Ever”

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Being a huge fan of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, especially so some 17 years after his death, I like any article that concludes with...

Dr. Don Berwick, Supporter of Lean Healthcare, to be New Obama Appointee

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Dr. Donald Berwick (bio), founder of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, has reportedly named by President Obama to head Centers for Medicare & Medicaid...

NPR on the “End of the Line” at NUMMI and My Story About an...

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Here's some Saturday morning listening... a story from yesterday's "All Things Considered" on the "End of the Line" at the NUMMI plant (the GM...

4 Complicated Words vs. 4 Easy Ones

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My friend and guest blogger Liz Guthridge ("The Lean Communicator") would get a kick out of this. I was at a meeting recently and a...

Apple & Microsoft – Please Move “Control-W”!!!!

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I'm a very frequent computer user and I'm pretty good with the ole' shortcut keys, on both Mac and Windows (I'm bi-lingual). I remember when...

Guest Post: Captain Sully Talks about Lean and Healthcare Safety

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Mark's note: I am thrilled to be able to bring you this guest post from my friend and fellow lean healthcare author Naida Grunden....

Is Ford’s Resurgence Due to a Less Blame-y Culture Under Alan Mulally?

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Mark's note: It's great to welcome Andy Wagner back to the blog. Read his older posts here. General Motors, Chrysler, and Toyota have been dominating...

Of 777s and Heart Rate Monitors

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In recent years, healthcare has been learning a lot of lessons from aviation -- including checklists and "Crew Resource Management," as written about in...

Special “Gemba Academy” DVD Offer

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My friend and neighbor Ron Pereira (his blog and twitter pages) is a partner in the Gemba Academy online Lean training efforts. Yes, neighbor....