All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Hat tip to the WSJ for their review of the new book Get Rid of the Performance Review!: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing–and Focus on What Really Matters. Dr. Deming criticized the annual performance review decades ago and…
In this interview, Stephen Covey shares his perspective on Toyota’s “Respect for People” principle and why trust, empowerment, and leadership beyond command-and-control are essential to Lean success. Recorded at the Shingo Prize Conference, the conversation connects Covey’s ideas about the…
I know this is a blog about Lean, but if you’re reading this, you might be somewhat hip to social media. That’s such a dorky way of expressing that, “hip to it.” Is “dorky” an uncool way of saying not…
Surprising news today from California… from the WSJ. Toyota and Tesla are partnering up! Tesla Motors Inc. said it is partnering with Toyota Motors Inc. to make electric cars at a recently shuttered auto plant in Fremont, Calif., in a…
Podcast #90 features Tim Turner, a team leader at Toyota’s factory in Georgetown Kentucky (aka TMMK or Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky). He is the author, along with a team of co-workers, of the new book called One Team on All…
I’m here at the Shingo Prize conference for the second year in a row. Lots of good networking and talks I’ll share a few quotes and highlights, along with a picture of my friend and sometimes guest blogger, Adam Zak.…
In an era where it was a “no brainer” to move factories to China, chasing cheap labor, the Lean world has often spoken out loudly against this. Back in the day, people said “Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM,”…
Error proofing (aka “poka yoke” or mistake proofing) is such a powerful Lean method. Some people, unfortunately, think that Lean is only about speed or efficiency or cost. Going back to Toyota, the two pillars of TPS are Just…
Paul Levy has shared some photos and a video, from Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, that gives a glimpse into the design of their new pharmacy. He wrote, in part: We have an old pharmacy on one side of…
The general public still, generally speaking, doesn’t realize how much preventable harm and death occurs in healthcare each year. Efforts like the Dennis Quaid “Target Zero” TV program are trying to educate the public about how common medical harm is…
Here’s yet another article with the lazy “Lean and Mean” cliche’ in the headline: “Make Your Physician Practice a Lean, Mean Healing Machine.” Real Lean isn’t mean toward patients or staff or physicians. It’s a shame the headline had to…
The idea of “surgical robots” is an interesting one. As a Lean guy, I’m naturally somewhat skeptical of technology – not to be a Luddite, but GM was the company that wanted the high-tech lights-out robotic factory (a vision that…
