Mark Graban’s newer Lean Blog Audio podcast series with “audiobook” style readings of selected blog posts. Learn how to subscribe.
My Favorite Mistake is a learning from mistakes podcast created for leaders who want to grow without blame. Each episode features honest conversations with business leaders reflecting on a professional mistake–and what they learned from it. The goal isn’t confession…
Today, I wanted to share an excellent article written by Dr. John Toussaint (of Catalysis) and Ken Segel (of Value Capture): Ken and John were both deeply influenced by the late Paul O’Neill, who made worker safety the primary imperative…
It’s possible that I could start traveling again for my healthcare consulting work next month… or maybe in July. My colleagues at Value Capture aren’t sure yet how this will work out, but clients are sharing their current plans for…
TL;DR: Paul O’Neill showed that safety isn’t a metric–it’s a leadership obligation, and the foundation for what he called habitual excellence. It was a sad weekend, hearing about the passing of Paul H O’Neill, Sr. on Saturday. He was 84.…
It’s great to see examples of manufacturing companies being flexible and adaptive in these challenging times. Lean methods are often providing a huge boost in what can be life-saving efforts. Lean often gets mislabeled as a “low inventory” system (or…
I had a phone conversation yesterday with an emergency medicine physician after her shift at an unnamed hospital in an undisclosed state. She had a number of frustrations to share and she doesn’t really have an outlet (and doesn’t want…
I’ve been thinking a lot about hospitals and how they’re preparing for the expected tsunami of Covid-19 patients who will need ICU beds and ventilators (when it’s expected that there won’t be enough of either). There have also been recent…
I normally love the public radio program “Marketplace” and have listened to it (on radio or as a podcast) for 15 years or so. But, I was very disappointed with this recent piece, which you can read here: “Just-in-time” manufacturing…
Today, I’m sharing a question from a reader who started their career at Toyota and now works at another company. See previous posts with reader questions. The reader has given me permission to share this — to get your input…
Here’s an article from Bloomberg BusinessWeek: GE’s Larry Culp Faces Ultimate CEO Test in Trying to Save a Once-Great Company Very early on, the article mentions Culp’s advocacy for “Toyota-style lean manufacturing.” Or is he pushing “Danaher-style lean manufacturing” and…
On October 15th, I hosted the latest in our KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Webinar series. I’m really happy that the presenter was Paul Wainright, as he has been a great advocate for KaiNexus. Click here to view the recording of the…
Last week was our fifth annual KaiNexus User Conference (or “KaiNexicon” as we now call it). One of our keynote speakers was Jess Orr, a former Toyota engineer who shared perspectives on what it was like to now lead continuous…
