All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Mark’s Note: Today’s guest post is by Chris Burnham. I invited him to write this after I saw him share his pre-surgical “poka yoke” (or error proofing) on Twitter (caution: picture of feet). I asked him if “anybody was offended”…
Last week, I had the opportunity to spend a day with my Healthcare Kaizen co-author Joe Swartz and his colleagues at one of the three hospitals in the Franciscan St. Francis Health system. It was my second visit and, like…
When considering what it takes to create “a culture of continuous improvement,” many people complain that they don’t have time. They don’t have time, as leaders, and their employees don’t have time. As I’ve asked before, are they making excuses…
About two years ago, we produced some short two- to three-minute education videos about Lean, Kaizen, and continuous improvement for KaiNexus. These were intended as short coaching sessions that would be sent to our customers / users and we’ve also…
Thanks to my friend and former Toyota employee Karthik Chandramouli for noticing this commercial on TV. In the 60-second piece, GE highlights how their advisors helped a manufacturing company double efficiency by using Lean methods and by asking “the important…
Listen My guests today are Darrell Damron and Hollie Jensen and we’re talking about Lean in Washington state government. Darrell and Hollie are both state employees, serving in the role of Enterprise Lean Consultant within a team called “Results Washington.”…
Although I’m a proud alum of Northwestern University, a former marching band member, and an ardent follower of our football team (as I’ve written about before), I grew up as a fan of the Michigan Wolverines and have many friends…
People often say Lean is pretty simple (or that it’s just “common sense“). Yeah, some of the concepts are simple… but sometimes deceptively so. Or, we find that it’s easier to describe Lean (as a management system, a set of…
In a Lean culture, the mindset is that “problems are treasure” or “problems are gold.” By honestly identifying problems, we can solve problems and prevent them from occurring in the future. Problems in healthcare can include medication errors, laboratory specimen…
As I blogged about last month, “Lean Coffee” is becoming a quarterly event for healthcare professionals here in San Antonio. We held a two-hour discussion this morning, with students, leaders, and Lean practitioners from a university MHA program and some…
Recently, while watching part of The Simpsons marathon that aired on FXX, I was inspired to write this post: “Proof That Nelson from The Simpsons is Not a Good Kaizen Coach.” That led Simon from Germany to point out a different…
I was recently interviewed by one of the reporters who put together this web article in Canada: “From the factory floor to the emergency department: Hospitals explore Lean method” The article highlights Lean success stories and it also raises some…
