I’m going to use this blog post / page to collect published statistics about the impact the Lean management philosophy has had on healthcare quality and patient safety. I will update this over time and this page can be accessed…
Listen: Wow, 100 episodes of my podcast since 2006! For this episode, I’m thankful to have the author of one of my favorite books in the last two years – Dave Crenshaw, author of The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing…
Once again, the WSJ has written about Lean at Starbucks (see my last post “Controversy over New Standardized Work at Some Starbucks Stores“) in Wednesday’s paper. The newest article is called “At Starbucks, Baristas Told No More Than Two Drinks“,…
I had an amazing conversation on Saturday with Paul Akers (pictured at left), the founder and president of FastCap, a company in Washington, a former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate seat, and the host of “The American Innovator” radio…
One of the books that’s had the biggest impact on my work is Donald Wheeler’s Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos. It’s the best guide for applying simple and powerful “statistical process control” (or SPC) practices to management data…
It’s time for a Lean Blog feature I haven’t done in a while…. “A Lean Guy Reads _______”. I’ve done this before with the WSJ, Fortune, and USA Today (click here for past editions). This time, it’s Tuesday’s USA Today…
Lean thinkers see the waste in healthcare when they are at the hospital “gemba“. I think this is true whether you are a Lean person who is new to healthcare or if you’re a long-time hospital person who has learned…
I nearly drove off the road when I heard this NPR story yesterday: “Allowance Economics: Candy, Taxes And Potty Training.” Please take a listen or a read. In the piece, an Australia economics professor who is “an expert in incentives”…
A number of readers emailed me a link to this New York Times article: “U.S. Inaction Lets Look-Alike Tubes Kill Patients.” The headline emphasizes the lack of governmental oversight, but I’d rather talk about the poor system design that allows…
Our guest for Episode #96 is Pascal Dennis of Lean Pathways, Inc. Pascal is a faculty member with the Lean Enterprise Institute and he’s the author of the books: Lean Production Simplified, Andy & Me: Crisis And Transformation On The…
If your goal is long wait times and frustrated customers, design your system for 100% utilization. Whether it’s airlines, call centers, or healthcare, the same predictable pattern emerges: full capacity destroys flow. Drawing on queuing theory, Factory Physics, and Lean…
OK, so I’ll admit I had a case of “rabbit ears” when I took the WSJ to task for calling the doomed BP Deepwater Horizon rig a “lean” operation. They were using the colloquial everyday use of “lean,” a term…