Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with a supply chain student (taking undergraduate courses) who reached out with thoughtful questions about Lean principles. We had a wide-ranging conversation–covering culture, communication, frontline engagement, and even organizing a water chemistry lab.…
I haven’t read it, but Marie Kondo’s book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing has been a pop-culture phenomenon in the past few years. I’ve seen some compare her process to the Lean…
I got onto the elevator in the lobby of our condo building one day last week. Our building’s maintenance guy was already on there with a rolling cart of tools and supplies. I asked him to let me hop on…
it's great to see an 11 year old thinking like an engineer and an entrepreneur. He's the son of a Toyota "operational excellence" consultant. For those who try to unfortunately equate Lean to a "clean desk policy," the father's desk is a great argument against banning family photos and an illustration of why Lean isn't about putting tape around everything...
Update: See the end of the post with some photos I took at the game yesterday where Beltre got his 3000th career hit – quite a milestone! Those who study and practice Lean often know about Taiichi Ohno, one of…
A few of you sent me this sad article from the Wall St. Journal:
"'People Are Dying Here': Federal Hospitals Fail Tribes."
I feel like I've some variation of this article and exposé many times over. Sometimes, it's some form of government medicine (active duty military medicine, the VA, or another country) or it's a similar sad story from the private healthcare sector (be it non-profit or for-profit).
What if "easier" is less safe? Great question. It begs the question of why Safer isn't first in Shingo's list? Is it because safety is assumed to be such a fundamental pre-condition in the Toyota culture or the Lean approach? Safety is such a non-negotiable point that it doesn't need to be said?
StoreSMART, a Rochester, New York-based manufacturer and retailer, has been an advertiser on this blog for over six months now. I also very much appreciate that they are trying to learn how to better serve those who are practicing Lean...
I’m guessing most “Lean thinkers” stayed home the other day on the “Black Friday” shopping day. Why might this be? For one, I think we tend to put safety first, so we avoid jostling, pushing, and shoving for discounts (and the…
Recently, I wrote about an on-site event that I helped the Iowa Lean Consortium and Mary Greeley Medical Center (MGMC) organize… here is my first post about the morning of that event, if you missed it: Celebrating & Sharing Continuous Improvement…
I’ve gotten to know to know Harry Kenworthy (pictured at left) over the past few years after meeting at a conference (the Northeast L.E.A.N. conference, I believe). The next Northeast L.E.A.N. Conference is October 4 and 5. It’s a great…
Gwendolyn Galsworth is a leading thinker and author on Lean and various aspects of "visuality." One thing she talks about in the workplace is "information deficits."
