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All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.

Blog

Ratings for “The Oscars” Were Lower in 2018? Should We Ask Why or Look for Longer-Term Trends?

Downward trending line graphic over gold trophy figures representing decline in success or performance.

As I blogged about yesterday, things went well at the Oscars... or, at least, no errors were made in the announcements. But that thing that didn't go well was the TV ratings.

Two Data Points Are Not a Trend
The headlines I saw had a lot of two-data-point comparisons. Headlines sometimes gave the percentage decrease in viewers or how many million fewer viewers there were. Many talked about "record low" but if you're tracking a metric "record low" or "all-time high" doesn't mean there's a "special cause." That "record low" could still be noise in the system.

Mark Graban
March 8, 2018
3 Comments

Blog

The Academy Awards Add an Inspector, Practice “Andon Cord Pulls,” Avoid Another Mixup

Tomorrow, my post will be about headlines that scream about ratings for The Oscars being "down from last year" or "the lowest in X years." As I've blogged about before, I'm always skeptical of such simplistic comparisons that might mask the real underlying trend.

But first, could the Academy avoid last year's embarrassing mixup?

Mark Graban
March 7, 2018

Blog

What’s Going at Toyota? A Newly-Centralized TPS Group

Here's an interesting Bloomberg article about Toyota never being satisfied, which includes improving the way they improve:

"Toyota's Way Changed the World's Factories. Now the Retool"

Did you know that Toyota has a central TPS group??

Mark Graban
March 6, 2018
1 Comment

Blog

Lessons from NUMMI’s 10th Anniversary Book: Respect, Teamwork, and Lean Leadership

I did manage to buy a book that was published by NUMMI to celebrate their 10th anniversary. "10 Years of Quality & Teamwork" is the title.

Here is the cover and I'll share a few things that caught my attention inside. It's interesting to think through this book in the context of :

Tesla (the current owners of the building - see my past blog post)
Healthcare organizations

Mark Graban
March 4, 2018
3 Comments

Blog, Japan

From Japan: Lean Tour Updates, Supply Chain Insights, and A3 Thinking

Konnichiwa from Japan! I am having a great time with my friends from Kaizen Institute and our tour attendees. I wrote a post on Monday, but I never expect to be able to write much while here because it's very busy and I also want to reflect a bit before writing.

In this post, I share two articles I wrote recently and some other tidbits...

Mark Graban
February 28, 2018

Blog, Japan

What Books on #Lean and TPS Are Sold at the Toyota Museum in Nagoya?

It's Monday morning in Nagoya, Japan as I write this. I'm still jet-lagged and up early, so here's a blog post after all...

Sunday, I had the chance to visit the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology in Nagoya. There's so much that I can blog about...I'll write more posts about my museum visit in the future.

In this post though, I share a little bit about some of the books that they sell - in English and Japanese...

Mark Graban
February 26, 2018
2 Comments

Blog

Every Metric Has Variation – What Can We Learn from NCAA Football Attendance?

Last week, I saw a headline about a drop in NCAA college football attendance.

I wasn't satisfied with the two data point comparisons or other written descriptions of the metrics. I wanted to see data. SHOW ME THE DATA, JERRY! (with apologies to "Jerry Maguire"). I wanted to see a chart. So, I found the data on to NCAA website and created "process behavior charts" that tell you much more about the data than text numbers ever could.

Mark Graban
February 21, 2018

Blog, Interviews

Joe Swartz on Champions of Change, Kaizen, and Healthcare Supply Chains

This podcast is sponsored by Cardinal Health.

Joining me again for episode #301 of the podcast is Joe Swartz, my friend and co-author for our books Healthcare Kaizen and The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen:. You can learn more about our books here. He also contributed a chapter to the book Practicing Lean. (read an excerpt).

Today, we're talking about "Champions of Change," as I've been writing about for Cardinal Health.

Mark Graban
February 20, 2018

Audio, Blog

What’s Going on at Tesla? Is Elon Musk Following up on Employee Injuries?

There's a lot to admire about Elon Musk. I admire his risk taking and his entrepreneurial spirit. I use PayPal a lot (one of his early companies) and I admire the innovation of Tesla and SpaceX. But, I question how much Musk and Tesla have been willing to learn from Toyota or people like Paul O'Neill.

Mark Graban
February 19, 2018
11 Comments

Blog

[Cartoon] The Elephant in the (Board) Room

Today's post is my eighth cartoon collaboration with a skilled artist and medical assistant, Carrie Schurman (see past cartoons). You can find her on Twitter as @carrieschurman.

Mark Graban
February 16, 2018
2 Comments

Blog

How a Lean Adoption Strategy for Public Schools Applies to Everyone

I'm happy to be playing the role of host and moderator next Monday for a webinar that will be presented by Harry Kenworthy titled:

How a Lean Adoption Strategy for Public Schools Applies to Everyone
The webinar is presented by KaiNexus. I think it's a webinar that, like the last one he did for us, will have lessons for people from any industry or setting.