Today's podcast is presented with a heavy heart, after the recent passing of my friend Dr. Michel Téatrault, the CEO of St. Boniface General Hospital and a great Lean leader. He was a friend to many in the Healthcare Value Network and the broader Lean healthcare community. As I was remembering Michel, it occurred to me
Before I head out on vacation, here is a reader question that I am sharing for your input.I’m sharing this with permission and I’m obscuring a few details at their request. Please read and leave a comment below the post.…
In this podcast episode, Jacob Stoller shares insights from interviewing CEOs across industries and explains why Lean succeeds or fails based less on tools and more on culture, leadership humility, and respect for people. The conversation explores what truly distinguishes…
Returning to the podcast after his first appearance in Episode #188 is Daniel T. Jones, founder and chairman of the UK-based Lean Enterprise Academy. You can find him on Twitter now as @DanielJonesLean. Dan collaborated with Jim Womack on the books The…
The ideas, principles, and methods that we’d recognize as “Lean” aren’t exclusively of Japanese origin. Many of us, myself included, draw inspiration from Toyota, reading books about them and visiting their factories. For me, I’ve had a chance to visit…
There have been plenty of headlines and updates since I first blogged about the controversy over Lean healthcare in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan (see my previous posts here). From my outside perspective, there are some good things happening. I…
Joe Swartz and I are building upon our well-received (and Shingo Research Award winning) book Healthcare Kaizen with a new special edition aimed at busy senior leaders. The book is available for pre-order now at Amazon.com: The Executive Guide to…
I always get annoyed when people spread the false dichotomy of “Lean is about efficiency and Six Sigma is for quality.” Replace the word “efficiency” with “speed” or “flow” and it’s still wrong. Here is an example of this falsehood…
Former Wiremold CEO Art Byrne explains why Lean must be led directly by the CEO and treated as a core business strategy–not a set of tools. Drawing on his experience at GE, Danaher, and The Wiremold Company, Byrne shares how…
A returning guest for episode #132, we are joined by author and professor Bob Emiliani. Today, we are chatting about some videos he recently posted to his website… 10-year-old videos that document executives from Virginia Mason Medical Center, now considered…
Becker’s Hospital Review published a piece about the first 10 years of Lean at Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center: 10 Years Later: Virginia Mason Production System Still Going Strong. The article highlights some of the reasons for the longevity of…
Today, I’m sharing a link to some videos our good friend Bob Emiliani has uncovered and posted on his website. Back in November 2001, leaders from Virginia Mason Medical Center visited Wiremold, a manufacturing company whose Lean transformation was covered…