Category Blog

All Blog Posts

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

Four Years of Lean Blogging

I always just slightly “miss” the birthday of the Lean Blog. My first post to the blog was January 3, 2005. I’ve been doing this for four years? The blog started off really slowly… it was just a place for…

5S for Email

We recently released Issue 14 of Lean Progress and it included a brief set of tips on how to apply 5S on email. There is perhaps much more that could be written, but most people are so overwhelmed by the…

Lean is More than a Toolkit

I had a great conversation with a fellow healthcare lean thinker the other day. She shared my book, Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction, with the CEO and some other executives at a hospital she works with.…

Posts of the Year 2008

Following the pattern of our good friend Ron Pereira at the Lean Six Sigma Academy, a number of us are going “Best of 2008” posts, in coordination with John Hunter and the Curious Cat blog. Click here for John’s compilation…

5S Still Gives Companies Fits

I am amazed that as long as we’ve talked about 5S, it still gives companies fits and trouble. Many companies start with 5S because it’s simple. It may be simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. This isn’t a tool…

Why Was Everyone So Miserable Today?

I recall reading Dr. Deming talking about how people should be able to enjoy their work. I know for certain I've heard Norman Bodek talk about it in speeches and my podcasts. Norman loves to ask why people never say "Thank God It's Monday!!!!!"

Dr. Berwick and Lean in Business Week

Donald Berwick: Curing the Healthcare System – BusinessWeek Good exposure for the applicability and use of Lean concepts in healthcare in BusinessWeek. Dr. Berwick is the head of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (based in Cambridge, coincidentally, like the Lean…