Japan Airlines and "TPS"
JAL boss puts job on the line | FT business | The Australian JAL is planning on using the Toyota Production System as part of their turnaround. I’ve written before about United’s lean efforts, so maybe JAL can learn from…
Category Blog
All Blog Posts
All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Book Review: Lean Kaizen
By Luke Van Dongen: Name of Book: Lean Kaizen: A Simplified Approach to Process Improvements Authors: George Alukal & Anthony Manos Publication Date: 2006 Reviewed By: Luke Van Dongen, February 2007 Book description: what’s the key message? This book is…
Getting Lean Right, and Getting References Right
Quite some time ago, I wrote an article titled Getting Lean Right. I included a quote from someone which I did not have a reference for. I thought it was an important point to share, but I recently got an…
New Directions, Bad Lean Strategies and Leading Lean
Throughout my travels, I continue to be frustrated with the lack of creative thinking that is going into lean transformation strategies. I was recently shared a story from within a company where a “leadership” award had been presented to a…
Maker’s Mark “Burning Platform”
Maker’s Mark – History: I saw this on the Travel Channel’s “Made in America” show, about Maker’s Mark Bourbon: “1943 Bill Samuels, Sr. decided to create a distinguished style of bourbon whisky. So he left the T.W. Samuels Distillery and…
GM’s Actual Ad Actually Lame
Here is the actual ad that ran during the game, after seeing the preview here. If you’re reading this via RSS or a news reader, come visit the actual blog page to view the commercial video. So, the “joke”…
GM’s Lame Superbowl Ad with a Depressed Robot
Kevin Meyer, over at Evolving Excellence, gets credit for finding this first — GM’s Super Bowl commercial: My comments, posted on Kevin’s site: Imagine if the billions GM spent on technology development had been put into people development and lean.…
Dell: Make or Buy?
Dell rings Bell to run US – Sunday Times – Times Online: It’s a common phrase in the manufacturing world, the “make or buy” decision. One of my pet peeves came up in an article about Michael Dell returning to…
Does HR work for Employees or the Company?
Lean Blog: Lean Should be Better Supported by HR I got this email from a blog reader, name withheld: “I read your items about annual reviews and had to email. I work for a large global corporation that says it…
Lean and Growth
The Connecticut Post Online – Bridgeport plant powers up for military Here’s an article that talks about a company using lean to support growth. This is an important lesson and concept because growth is what allows us to take efficiency…
Are Annual Reviews Killing Your Morale?
Deming listed the annual review process as one of the “deadly diseases” of management. From this website: “Evaluation of performance, annual review, merit rating. nourishes short-term performance annihilates long-term planning demolishes teamwork promotes competition builds fear promotes playing politics destroys…
Learning from Super Bowl Coaches
In the Lead – WSJ.com The WSJ wrote Monday about the leadership styles of Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, the Super Bowl coaches for the Colts and Bears. The Super Bowl should be required viewing for managers who think screaming…
