I spent Monday and Tuesday in lovely Phoenix at the ASQ Lean and Six Sigma annual conference. I saw many friends there, including Karen Martin, former (and possibly future) guest blogger Mike Lopez, and Tony Manos from 5S Supply. The…
It’s important not to confuse a proper Lean “gemba walk” with the idea of “management by walking around” (MBWA). What did the late, great Dr. W. Edwards Deming say in 1982? ‘Management by walking around’ is hardly ever effective. The…
I volunteered to give a presentation last Friday for the North Texas Society for Healthcare Risk Management, where I was able to debut some new material from our upcoming book, Healthcare Kaizen. These continuous improvement methods are a great way…
These daily healthcare kaizen examples show simple ways to document improvements, recognize the people involved, and share learning. I originally shared them in 2011 while Joe Swartz and I were developing Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Improvements. The…
When an organization sets a target for the number of kaizen ideas employees should submit, it usually gets exactly what it asked for — a number. What it doesn’t get is genuine improvement. The ideas come in to hit the…
Norman Bodek discusses ideas from his book How to Do Kaizen, including why real innovation starts with empowering every employee to be a problem solver. He also tackles a great question: what should a leader do when an employee’s suggestion…
Video #11 features Norman Bodek talking about some of the ideas in his most recent book, How to do Kaizen: A new path to innovation – Empowering everyone to be a problem solver. Late in the podcast, Norman asks and…
I’m here at the Shingo Prize conference for the second year in a row. Lots of good networking and talks I’ll share a few quotes and highlights, along with a picture of my friend and sometimes guest blogger, Adam Zak.…
In this post, I’m going to tell you about some upcoming Lean events I’m involved in – planning, producing, or participating. Eric Ries “Lean Startups” Webinar for LEI Shingo Prize Conference Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit I think these will all…
Happy New Year to my blog readers! Do you have any “lean resolutions” for the year 2010? Feel free to share them, if you like, in the comments section for this post. Here were some resolutions from two years ago,…
TL;DR: Hospitals that actively engage frontline staff through Lean suggestion systems are saving millions while improving patient care, morale, and safety–without layoffs. Staff-driven kaizen works because the people closest to the work are best positioned to improve it, every day.…
Video #7 is a continuation of Episode #3 with Norman Bodek recounting his early trips to Japan and learning about kaizen, just in time, and Lean. For audio podcast episodes, please visit www.leanpodcast.org. For video podcasts, you can also go…
