Jeffrey Liker explains why Lean culture is difficult to replicate and why most organizations never move beyond tools and events. Sustainable Lean requires long-term leadership commitment, stability, and deep people development–not quick fixes. Here is LeanBlog Podcast #39, once again…
Review By Mike Gardner, TPM Blog Name of the Book: How Toyota Became #1 Author: David Magee Publication Date: 2007 Book description: David Magee interviewed current and former Toyota executives in the United States and Japan in order to understand…
Roger Penske adds the Smart car to his $17B empire – Oct. 5, 2007 Good article here about businessman Roger Penske. I didn’t realize that he once passed up the chance to succeed Iaccoca at Chrysler. Back in 1992, Chrysler’s…
Click here for Part 1 and Part 2 of the series of posts about my visit to Dr. Sami Bahri, the “World’s First Lean Dentist.” In Part 2, I talked about how the Lean “tool heads” might be disappointed, and…
It’s time for another segment of “cleaning out the backlog,” those articles I meant to blog about, but didn’t get to. These are also articles that don’t demand too much commentary…. so enjoy: Where is Gary Convis going now that…
Our friend and sometimes blogger Bill Hanover posted a comment a few days ago about the arrival of a baby boy – congrats. He joked about “Lean” names, so I’ll share a few suggestions (and feel free to submit some):…
Running a hospital: Our Joint Commission Report The headline is my modification of a Deming expression, that management’s job is prediction. Statistical process control was one way of predicting future outcomes of a process (if you have a statistically stable…
LeanBlog Podcast #28 features our friend and frequent guest, Norman Bodek, noted lean author, consultant, and President of PCS Press. This also celebrates the one-year anniversary of the Podcast, which featured Norman as our first guest. As I’ve given him…
At Ford, the ‘Outsider’ Is Optimistic – WSJ.com There’s an interview with Ford CEO Alan Mulally today, we’ve featured him before on the blog (click the “Ford” link at the bottom of the post for more on the company). The…
There were a couple of articles in the WSJ this past week that, in an indirect way, talk about the value of being at the “gemba” as a manager (gemba is a Japanese word that means “the actual place” where…
How H-P Reclaimed Its PC Lead Over Dell – WSJ.com Today’s WSJ article doesn’t focus on the Dell layoffs (although it does mention them, as did the Evolving Excellence blog post on the layoffs), but rather the competitive dynamics between…
Listen: LeanBlog Podcast Episode #21 features our friend and frequent guest, Norman Bodek, noted lean author, consultant, and President of PCS Press. In this Podcast, we talk about how Lean should be good for a company’s employees, that Lean and…
