David Mann explains why creating a Lean culture depends on leader behavior and management systems–not tools or compliance–and how leader standard work helps sustain improvement. He shares practical guidance for executives on using Gemba walks to learn, teach, and reinforce…
My guest for episode #186 is my friend Jon Miller, CEO of Kaizen Institute and a long-time blogger at Gemba Panta Rei. Today, we’re talking about his upcoming book, Creating a Kaizen Culture: Align the Organization, Achieve Breakthrough Results, and…
Mark’s note: Today’s guest post is from Dr. Mark Jaben, an American doctor who worked in New Zealand, leading to this blog post. I have talked with Mark about Lean quite a bit over the past few years and we…
Again, I’m very happy to host the Carnival for John Hunter and his Curious Cat blog. My job here is to share some noteworthy and thought provoking posts from the past few weeks from the blogs I try to keep…
A number of readers emailed me a link to this New York Times article: “U.S. Inaction Lets Look-Alike Tubes Kill Patients.” The headline emphasizes the lack of governmental oversight, but I’d rather talk about the poor system design that allows…
LeanBlog Podcast Episode #71 is part two of a conversation with Patrick Anderson, the Executive Director of Chugachmiut, the Tribal consortium created to promote self-determination to the seven Native communities of the Chugach Region. I met Patrick at a Lean…
Thanks to XM Radio, I was able to listen to Sunday’s Detroit Red Wings playoff game and the WJR radio broadcast from Detroit (the “great voice of the Great Lakes”). I heard a commercial a few times that I managed…
Retailers Reprogram Workers In Efficiency Push – WSJ.com This is more of a Deming philosophy article than a “Lean article” since the retailer in question here doesn’t say they’re using Lean…. which is good, since the situation described in the…
TL;DR: Being mistaken for a “time study man” reveals how often Lean is confused with Taylorist observation and speed-up tactics. True Lean in healthcare partners with nurses to reduce waste and improve care–without blame, stopwatches, or fear of layoffs. I…
By Bryan Lund, guest contributor to the Lean Blog: I posted the following question on LinkedIn.com as Mark noted in a previous blog entry: “How important is the past in learning about how to handle the future? Specifically…I think that…
I took another look at the “lean obstacles” survey questions, but this time breaking it down by some key demographic factors (more details here): Public vs. Private Company Revenue Organizational Level Again, I wish had the n=2000+ sample size of…
Question 2 in the Lean Blog survey about Lean obstacles took the same choices as Question 1 and forced the respondents to choose the TOP reason why they struggled with Lean. The choice that wasn’t available in the LEI survey…
