All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
I've worked with a lot of companies whose primary operational strategy boils down to "cut costs". Others on Mark's blog have written about the many unintended consequences of cutting costs as a myopic strategy. But I'd like to share a trend among small manufacturers I've seen...
Many of you don’t care about football, but you might find it interesting, as I did, to learn that Northwestern’s defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz is apparently a fan of Kaizen...
Today's podcast is presented with a heavy heart, after the recent passing of my friend Dr. Michel Téatrault, the CEO of St. Boniface General Hospital and a great Lean leader. He was a friend to many in the Healthcare Value Network and the broader Lean healthcare community. As I was remembering Michel, it occurred to me
The W. Edwards Deming Institute posted a video of Kevin Cahill, a grandson of Dr. Deming, welcoming people to the event and talking about innovation, or the desire that people have for it. But, they don't know what to do...
These Donald Trump hats (and hats for other candidates including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush) are made by a Newark company, Unionwear. Lean is their strategy and their production system. That’s how they are competing against China.
Going through some old files, I found an article that I wrote back in late 2005. I wrote it for somebody within our J&J Lean Healthcare circles, trying to help draw parallels to the idea that a hospital lab couldn’t just copy a “Lean layout” without also changing the way they work. I never published it
Mark's note: Today's post is by Paul Critchley and he raises important questions that I've seen in both factories and hospitals. Here's his post... As I've moved through my career and Lean journey, I've been blessed to have met and worked with some really fantastic people...
Today's guest is Eric Dickson,MD, MHCM, FACEP, the president and CEO of UMass Medical Center. Today's podcast is a recording of an interview that I did on stage at the 2015 Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, as part of the CEO panel I was moderating.
There's a really good article that was published by Modern Healthcare as a special report, written by Sabriya Rice. Sabriya spent a week observing a rapid improvement event (RIE) at the Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Illinois. It's an in depth article that, I think, very accurately reflects the reality that Lean is helpful, but the process isn't easy for a number of reasons.
As a Lean change agent, I've made a lot of mistakes. Some mistakes I recognized early and recovered from; others were a blind spot that affected outcomes and success of the assignment. A few still haunt me from time to time when I suffer a case of "woulda, coulda, shoulda."
It's tempting to visit a place like ThedaCare and then mandate "everybody must have huddle boards." Then, a bunch of huddle boards get purchased and installed... and maybe not used. It's another thing for executives to realize that they have to change the way they manage. There's a great quote that ThedaCare folks readily share, including Kim Barnas in her book Beyond Heroes:
Enhancing Workplace Well-being and Patient Care Through Lean Initiatives Joining me for episode #230 is Paul DeChant, MD, MBA to talk about reducing burnout, especially physician burnout, through Lean. Paul (see his bio here) is the former CEO of Sutter Gould Medical Foundation,…
