Monthly Archives: February 2013
My 2nd Tour of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas (San Antonio)
I had the chance to tour the San Antonio Toyota truck plant (otherwise known as TMMTX) back in 2010 (and I blogged about it...
Podcast #166 – Julie Bartels, Healthcare Clinical Business Intelligence Network at Catalysis
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My guest for episode #166 is Julie Bartels, Executive Vice President, National Healthcare Information at the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value. In this episode,...
Toyota’s Respect for People Principle: The Heart of Lean Thinking and Practice
tl;dr: In this post, Mark explores Toyota's principle of "Respect for People" within the context of Lean methodologies. He delves into how this principle...
Japan Trip: Going to Gemba and Seeing 5S at a Japanese Hospital
I've been going back through my notes and pictures from my first trip to Japan in November... my goal is to blog about something or...
My Two Upcoming Webinars – on Waste and Kaizen in Healthcare
I'm going to be giving two free webinars in March that you might be interested in signing up for:
Gemba Academy - 8 Wastes in...
Does Al Qaeda Do a Better Job of Sharing Kaizen Ideas Than Your Hospital?
I saw an interesting article in The Telegraph: "Revealed: al-Qaeda's 22 tips for dodging drones."
Apparently, the Al Qaeda terror network is responding to the...
Stuff I’m Reading, February 21, 2013: Transparent Errors, Hidden Gorillas, Gaming of Systems
It's time again for a regular feature I call "Stuff I'm Reading." I have too many browser tabs open and my Mac is bogging...
Misinterpreting Deming: The Misuse of ‘Survival is not Mandatory’ in Lean Practice
One of the more popular email signature quotes that I see (at least amongst Lean practitioners) is this priceless gem from Dr. W. Edwards...
What Makes a Person Clean Drinking Glasses with Pledge? A Bad System
"A bad system, will defeat a good person, every time." -- W. Edwards Deming
Would you polish drinking glasses at home with the furniture cleaner...
Healthcare Kaizen: The Suggestion Box is Dead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBmcokWStLk
This webinar was held with guest presenter, Mark Graban of https://www.leanblog.org/
Suggestion box programs, while well intended, usually fail to engage employees in any improvement,...
Please Don’t Steal THIS Idea – Paying a % Bonus for Cost Savings
In the Kaizen approach, stealing the ideas of others isn't a negative thing. If somebody else implemented an idea and you can use that...
“Loving Care” for Patients Doesn’t Have to Wait for Valentine’s Day
Today is Valentine's Day, so this blog post should give you a few hours' warning to buy a "just in time" gift for your...
