I stumbled across a piece Richard Feynman spoke some time ago about “Cargo Cult Science” and couldn’t help but extend the analogy to “Cargo Cult Lean”, or as Mark’s named it, “LAME: Lean as Mistakenly Executed.” First off, what is…
Pharmacy transformed at Women and Children’s Hospital Here is a story about a Buffalo hospital that designed a new pharmacy space. The article doesn’t mention Lean… although I know of many hospitals that have used Lean methods in a pharmacy…
I’m happy to announce that I will be speaking at a few events and forums this fall. The firm I work for will also be doing some events in Boston (September) and Dallas (November), so I hope to be able…
Express Mail: USPS Says Guaranteed Overnight Isn’t Guaranteed. What? Saw this post on The Consumerist blog about how the United States Postal Service does NOT guarantee overnight delivery of “guaranteed” overnight documents…. IF you place the package in a drop…
Fixing East-West clash challenging Prof. Jeffrey Liker keynoted a Lean event in Oklahoma and is quoted as saying: Maybe the cowboy and the samurai best illustrate the chasm between Eastern and Western corporate cultures, author Jeffrey Liker offered Thursday during…
Below is some of the text from edition #3 of the newsletter from my upcoming book Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction. ————————————— Hospitals are notorious for employing “workarounds” to respond to problems. For example, when supplies…
By Jason Turgeon: This week is National Drinking Water Week! If that doesn’t excite you, think about the Lean implications of this dreadful story about the deaths of 80 children last month in South Africa resulting from a breakdown in…
Mistake-proofing expert Martin Hinckley joins the podcast to explain why traditional inspection methods can’t catch rare mistakes — and what it actually takes to eliminate them. We cover the difference between mistakes and variation, the real meaning of poka-yoke, and…
By Jason Turgeon: As a regular part of my job, I visit large industrial sites (mostly sewage treatment plants-yum!). This means that I have to have an OSHA certification in worker safety. Every year, my employer hires a trainer to…
Dennis Quaid Recounts Twins’ Drug Ordeal, Actor Tells 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft Medical Errors Kill Thousands – CBS News Did you see the actor Dennis Quaid on 60 Minutes last week? He talked about the sad case where his twin…
Harry Hillaker–Father of the F-16 Toyota’s Value Innovation: The Art of Tension Mark has written before about “Everyday Lean“, those little examples of error-proofing or kanban or flow that we see in our day-to-day lives. In a similar vein, one…
L.I. Hospital Scrutinized After Deaths of Patients – New York Times It wasn’t the same laboratory this time, but it’s more than likely a similar root cause. I wrote before about pathology specimen labeling errors, how they’re preventable human error.…