Is Lean an Acronym? No – And Here’s Where the Term Actually Came From
Is LEAN an acronym? NO.
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Reader Questions: Lean and Process Improvement in Healthcare
I received some really good questions from a reader, Nick, who has recently crossed industries to bring his Lean Manufacturing experience into healthcare. Since I thought the questions might lead to a good blog post, I’m going to address them…
Book Review: One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
While doing research for my upcoming book on “Healthcare Kaizen,” I found two books that touched on kaizen-style continuous improvement in our everyday lives. One was a brief mention in a book from a TV personality (see my post An…
Honoring Our Troops with Better Service through Lean
In honor of Veterans’ Day (in the U.S.) and Remembrance Day (in Canada, where I spent most of the last two weeks, often wearing a poppy pin), let’s pause to honor those who have served their country. Let’s also maybe…
Lean in Hospitals: Which Tool or Which Need?
As people first learn about Lean, they often ask questions like “what tools or methods should we use first?” These tools include things like 5S or varied forms of rapid improvement events. As I have heard Jim Womack say, tools…
Problems like This Should be the Focus of “Lean Government”
The “Strong America Now” initiative has proposed there are opportunities to save $500 BILLION a year from our U.S. federal government budget by using Lean and Six Sigma methods (I interviewed Mike George, the founder of the campaign here in…
The “A3 Sensei” iPad App That Required Two iPads (April Fools 2011)
Today, I’m happy to bring you an interview, conducted via Skype Chat, with Baka Eipuriru, inventor of a new iPad app called “A3 Sensei.” It is a new app (a pair of apps, actually) that you can use to create and…
Eric Ries on the Lean Startup Methodology and Continuous Innovation
Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, joins me to talk about how Lean principles shaped his approach to entrepreneurship, what continuous innovation actually looks like in practice, and why these ideas apply just as much inside large companies as…
Captain Sully and Patient Safety Lessons with Naida Grunden
Captain Sully and patient safety come together in this conversation with Naida Grunden, author of The Pittsburgh Way to Efficient Healthcare, who was corresponding with Chesley Sullenberger about aviation and healthcare safety in the months before he landed US Airways…
Mini-Review: First Three Chapters of the Virginia Mason Medical Center Lean Book
I’ve finally started reading the new book by Charles Kenney, Transforming Health Care: Virginia Mason Medical Center’s Pursuit of the Perfect Patient Experience, and I wanted to post a mini-review of the first three chapters. You can also buy (cheaper…
Safety First – Even for a Northwestern Football Game at Wrigley Field?
I’m really excited that I’m going to be attending tomorrow’s Northwestern football game that’s being played at Wrigley Field, the legendary baseball stadium that opened in 1912. This will be the first college game played there since 1938 and the…
Don’t Let Benchmarking Replace Your Own Process Engineering
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…