Through the @LEIhealthcare twitter account, one source of autotweets are the new threads started in the Lean Enterprise Institute forums. One new thread was started last week, titled “Sitter Ratios,” that caught my eye. Unfortunately, many of the Lean web…
TL;DR (2026): This interview with Masaaki Imai still matters because it captures an early, unvarnished view of how “respect for people” was practiced–not idealized–by Taiichi Ohno and Toyota. It reminds today’s Lean leaders that respect doesn’t mean being soft or…
When I read John Seddon’s book Freedom from Command & Control: Rethinking Management for Lean Service, I was a fan. I thought, “Here is someone from the Dr. Deming lineage who has a good message about what’s wrong with traditional…
Report: Toyota May Slow US Plant Builds: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance WSJ article: REDUCED SPEED Toyota’s New U.S. Plan: Stop Building Factories Toyota is concerned about overexpansion and overcapacity in the U.S., apparently. In Japan, most of Toyota’s factories…
A popular search term for people coming to the blog is “lean manufacturing quotes.” I’m not real big on using quotes and don’t have a ready collection handy, but I thought I would reach out to you, the blog readers.…
David Hendricks Column A column that summarizes a San Antonio visit by Masaaki Imai. The talk was prompted by the upcoming Toyota assembly plant there. The article also has information about the new plant and links to recent articles about…
Masaaki Imai interview! Masaaki Imai (the author of the book “Kaizen”) comments on the need to convert from batch to JIT and China ‘productivity’ among other topics. Please check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.org The RSS feed content…
DallasNews.com This reminds me of a classmate who used to joke about the need to “PDCA your life”. This article actually uses the word “kaizen” and references a psychologist who thinks its the right way for many people to address…
Masaaki Imai interview! Masaaki Imai comments on the need to convert from batch to JIT and China ‘productivity’, among other topics. One highlight: “Kaizen is the means to achieve a corporate strategy, not the strategy. Every corporation needs to make…
