There are lots of comments online, blogs, and Twitter about people complaining that Lean at Starbucks is an attempt to turn people into robots. Again, that is the furthest thing from truth. Fine, don’t believe me. Believe a hospital. Some…
A question came in from a blog reader — simple question with no simple or easy answers: Who are the Lean Thinking CEOs? My first thought is Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, for his famous customer obsession and belief in long-term thinking…
Lean Leap to Health Care #8 (click for Part #7) by Scott McDuffee “When a baby is born, a pleasant chime can be heard throughout the hospital and smiles come across the faces of all who hear.” Now dated, I…
Dear Lean Blog Readers: I try hard to not bombard you with commercial messages, but I do want to take a minute to recognize three of the sponsors that allow me to bring these free resources to you, like the…
Steve Spear spent six months embedded with a Toyota team as a doctoral student, learning the Toyota Production System by teaching it to a supplier in Kentucky. In this episode, he explains what he calls “high velocity” organizations — companies…
Following up on Part 1 of the survey results, we’ll now explore some of the results and lessons learned from event-driven Lean activities in hospitals and health systems (done under names such as Kaizen Events, Rapid Process Improvement Workshops, and…
Neatness Counts at Kyocera and at Others in the 5S Club – WSJ.com I’m going to violate a rule I have to try not to blog when I’m frustrated or angry. Here goes… Today’s front page (argh, front page) article…
To build a better hospital, Virginia Mason takes lessons from Toyota plants A number of you emailed me about the above article that was featured in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about Virginia Mason Medical Center, a hospital that’s seen as one…
They say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but I hope you like the cover that my publisher and I have come up with. I was pretty steadfast that Lean is about people and the cover should reflect that.…
Hospital’s shake-up gives nurses more time Here’s a nice news article about the use of Lean in a hospital in New Zealand (hat tip to Michael for sending it to me). Middlemore Hospital is the first in the country to…
Blundering hospitals ‘kill 40,000 a year’ – Britain – Times Online: Ah, gaming the numbers… everyone’s favorite pastime. It certainly is here in the State, even though I have my second story of the year related to gaming the numbers…
Episode #23 of the LeanBlog Podcast features a panel of Lean leaders from the Group Health Cooperative, a consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage. Based in Seattle, Group Health and its subsidiary health carriers, Group Health…
