Thanks to everybody for reading Lean Blog this year! As Christmas approaches, I’m taking off this week and probably next to enjoy time with family and some downtime. I hope you’ve had a successful year and I wish you nothing but the best for 2016...
n the spirit of "Lean publishing," the book Practicing Lean has another new incrementally-added chapter. The latest excellent contribution comes from Jamie Parker, writing about lessons learned in large commercial printing operations... lessons that can be applied anywhere...
How is it that we have two realities out there in healthcare... in parallel, Lean is awesome and Lean is horrible. It depends on where you are, unfortunately. I had an amazing day yesterday with a major health system...
The W. Edwards Deming Institute and Dr. Deming's grandson Kevin Cahill worked with NBC to make the 1980 program available, giving the institute perpetual rights to it (see their blog post). To the institute's credit, they've made this freely available on YouTube.
There’s no magic about the number five. I’ve seen some people write that five is somehow a “magic number.” No, that’s not really the case. Ask why more than once, probably more than twice…
Today’s guest is Mitch Cahn, president of Unionwear, a manufacturer of hats, bags, and apparel in Newark, NJ. I first learned about Mitch and his company because of a display they had at the Northeast LEAN Conference, which I blogged about here. What caught my eye was their display of politician hats they produce, including the...
Lean is, of course, not about a better way to build cars. It's a transferrable philosophy, management system, and methodology that is being applied in many different settings and industries, including healthcare. I'm often told (sometimes by somebody who is being sort of huffy): "Patients are not cars." [...]
Lean healthcare really is a global movement. Last year, when I went to Japan, we had people in the group from all across Asia, Denmark, Canada, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia. Health systems all around the world need to improve…
Mark's Note: I asked Paul Critchley to blog about this article from The Atlantic that I read recently: "Why L.L. Bean's Boots Keep Selling Out." You might want to read that first. Here's Paul's post: As a New Englander (and native Mainer) L.L. Bean holds a special place in my heart. For many, L.L. Bean represents everything...
...this WSJ article caught my attention: "The Coach Who Won't Leave the Locker Room." The sub headline is "Why Carolina Panthers' Ron Rivera has become obsessed with integrating himself into his players' personal workspace." An NFL coach is at "the gemba" during a game, of course...
We talk about problem solving and continuous improvement in the Lean methodology. How much time should we worry about distinguishing between the problems we CAN solve, the problems we SHOULD solve, and the problems we MUST solve? ...
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
