All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
In manufacturing, the term Lean has far too often been synonymous with layoffs. Doing so is more L.A.M.E. than Lean. People get anxious and throw around an acronym LEAN – Less Employees Are Needed. Ironically, Toyota (the inspiration or model for Lean)…
Back in 2007, I had my first opportunity to travel to England, a country I really love visiting. I had the chance to attend the “First Global Lean Healthcare Summit” that was produced by Dan Jones and the Lean Enterprise…
(And Might Not Even Be Real) TL;DR: People sometimes hope for the Hawthorne Effect, treating it like a positive driver of improvement. That was always misguided–because it would only imply short-term gains from attention, not better systems. And to make…
Organizations put up slogans because they want to inspire better performance. The intent usually isn’t the problem. The problem is that slogans assume the issue is with workers’ effort or attitude rather than with the system they’re forced to work…
You might know my friend Karl Wadensten, the president of VIBCO, a small manufacturer in Rhode Island. I’ve interviewed him for episode #84 of my podcast series (which was also episode #10 of my video podcast series). I’ve had a…
Mark’s Note: I met today’s guest blogger, Gus Lusack, when I was working with a hospital pathology department in the British NHS. Gus was the microbiology manager at the time and, while most of my engagement was in the core…
I have been going through some old papers recently and I found two sheets of paper with hand-written thoughts or “truisms” that I had scribbled down in early 2002. The word truism, it turns out, doesn’t mean “true” so much as…
In this podcast episode, Jacob Stoller shares insights from interviewing CEOs across industries and explains why Lean succeeds or fails based less on tools and more on culture, leadership humility, and respect for people. The conversation explores what truly distinguishes…
I hope you might have access to this interesting article from the Wall St. Journal: “Toyota Veteran Rises to Corporate Office From Factory Floor.” I was able to access it while logged out from my WSJ account. Mitsuru Kawai, pictured,…
Hi – I’d let to let you know about or remind you about a few upcoming events that I’ll be a part of. I hope you can join me for one or more of them. One of them is a…
Every time I am in a hospital or clinic setting, one of the first things I do is get a pump or squirt of gel or foam from a wall-mounted dispenser to clean my hands. Or, I should say *try*…
The One Thing Lean Six Sigma Gets Wrong About Lean? Mark’s Note: Today’s post is by Erwin van der Koogh, who is based in Australia. The thoughts and opinions here are his, though I agree with enough of them to…
