Monthly Archives: May 2017

Why the sign on the Apple Store door reminded me of their poor problem solving and inelegant solutions to my broken MacBook Pro. This might be my last blog post for the week unless that gets sorted out (or if I get better at doing work like this on my iPad). It might be my last Mac. How the mighty have fallen?

I received another reader question (submit yours here) and it's about statistics, "daily Lean management," and visualizing performance data. Hey Mark: I like your posts...

Joining me today is Jim Lancaster, CEO of the company Lantech, a manufacturer that is the leader in stretch wrap technology and innovation, as well as case handling equipment. Jim is also author of the new book, published by the Lean Enterprise Institute, titled The Work of Management: A Daily Path to Sustainable Improvement.

What if "easier" is less safe? Great question. It begs the question of why Safer isn't first in Shingo's list? Is it because safety is assumed to be such a fundamental pre-condition in the Toyota culture or the Lean approach? Safety is such a non-negotiable point that it doesn't need to be said?

Questions for a baseball game, a hospital or any workplace: What happens when we have rules that are confusing to people? What happens when those rules aren't being enforced? And what if the rule is a solution to a problem that's not really a problem?

A culture of continuous improvement is really powerful - in a pizza restaurant or any type of workplace. It engages Milennials and people from other generations too...

In recent years, I've written two blog posts about the sad scenarios where the wrong building was demolished by a crew. In these scenarios, it's easy to blame "bad crew" instead of looking at systemic causes of such an error. Having a better process is always more effective than admonishing people to "be more careful." What did I see recently that caught my attention in terms of trying to prevent demolition errors?

My guests for Episode #282 of the podcast are two continuous improvement leaders from Cleveland Clinic: Dr. Lisa Yerian and Nate Hurle. Lisa is the Medical Director, Continuous Improvement and Nate is the Senior Director, Continuous Improvement.She's a doctor, he's an engineer, and they work together very closely in their efforts to help drive improvement at the Clinic.

Does your healthcare organization struggle with keeping hand sanitizer dispensers full? Let me know what you think of this "two-bin kanban" system prototype from a vendor that might more forward on this...

Thanks to Lean Frontiers for sharing a story from Mike Hoseus on LinkedIn. Mike is, of course, co-author of the excellent book Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way (written with Jeff Liker, who I just learned is retiring from the University of Michigan... more on that soon).

A reader asks why I got involved with Lean in healthcare. In this post, I share what I wrote about this in the preface to "Lean Hospitals" and I share some additional thoughts and reflections.

I helped present a webinar with Dr. Greg Jacobson, the CEO and co-founder of KaiNexus on Tuesday May 16: Taking Improvement Boards Digital: How Leading Companies...