The Queen Sets the Takt Time?
Clients of mine always end up saying something like “Lean really gets into your head… it’s hard to turn off” – or at least one on every project ends up saying that. That’s a good thing… a way of thinking,…
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"Successful" "Lean" Company "Forced" to Raise Prices
Wenger Corp. Announces Price Increases – MarketWatch Harkening back to my earlier post about GM schizophrenically cutting AND raising prices (due to poor sales and rising materials costs), we find another article about a company raising prices “because they have…
Is GM Smoking Something?
Industry News: GM To Offer Zero-Percent Financing, Raise Prices, Screen Hummer Buyers It’s very hard to figure out what GM is thinking these days. In the first link above, the Jalopnik blog highlights an inconsistency I also noticed… it’s the…
Happy Friday, Happy Holiday!
Monday morning blues ‘are a myth’ – Science, News – The Independent I’m going to take a bit of a “blog holiday” this weekend, since it’s a holiday in the U.S. (I prefer to call it “Independence Day,” not the…
A Lean Guy Reads FORTUNE
As I was catching up on my back issues of FORTUNE, I had a few Lean thoughts as I read. In the June 9 edition, the article “Wal-Mart puts the squeeze on food costs” caught my eye. It says: Wal-Mart…
Blog Format Change – Comments
Hi – if you’re a regular reader (or especially a frequent commenter), you may notice a change to how comments are entered.If you click on “comments” to add a comment, this is now done on the main blog page, instead…
Surgical Checklists in the News!
WHO Proposes Checklist to Reduce Surgery Errors : NPR A surgical revolution: checklist that could prevent thousands of deaths Thanks to long-time readers Chet and Andrew for pointing out these similar stories, one from NPR in the U.S. and one…
Tom Peters: The high number of hospital-caused drug errors and infections is a disgrace
From Modern Healthcare (link no longer available), Tom Peters throws a few verbal bombs at the healthcare industry: Quality gains needn’t be costly, Peters tells HFMA Financial executives can do more to improve healthcare quality and it won’t cost more…
My Letter to the IE Magazine
I’m a proud member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers and their sub-organization the Society for Health Systems. I try to contribute to the cause with my “Everyday Lean” blog series that they host on their site. I wrote a…
Norman Bodek on His 68th Trip to Japan, Canon vs. Toyota, and Rethinking “Work Smarter, Not Harder”
Norman Bodek is once again back for episode #47 of the LeanBlog Podcast. Today, he shares insights from his 68th study trip to Japan. Norman reflects on decades of visiting Toyota and contrasts what he saw there with Canon’s groundbreaking…
Reader Question: Difficult People
Fire people who think they’re entitled to run things – Jacksonville Business Journal: The linked article and question were sent by a reader who asked, in part: I discovered your blog and podcast a few months ago and have been…
Lean and Deming’s Anti-Slogan Views
Earlier leanblog.org post and comment Last week, I posted about Deming’s 14 points and I got an interesting question from a blog reader, Brian: I found # 10 confounding: “Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets.” Slogans are sometimes used to communicate…
