Tag: Deming

One of the first people in healthcare to be influenced by Deming’s work is Dr. Don Berwick, founder of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (at right in that picture). Berwick wrote about Deming’s ideas back in...

Hopefully you've already seen the famed 1980 NBC documentary "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" that featured Dr. W. Edwards Deming. I posted a link to the video and some notes on Part 1 of the broadcast. Today, I'd like to blog about Part 3 of the program...

When we see a simple error, even in something as silly as sports memorabilia, we would ask "why?" or "how?" instead of "who?" Blaming individuals doesn't help...

Recently, I shared the famed 1980 NBC documentary, "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" that essentially introduced W. Edwards Deming to a mainstream Western...

The W. Edwards Deming Institute and Dr. Deming's grandson Kevin Cahill worked with NBC to make the 1980 program available, giving the institute perpetual rights to it (see their blog post). To the institute's credit, they've made this freely available on YouTube.

There’s no magic about the number five. I’ve seen some people write that five is somehow a “magic number.” No, that’s not really the case. Ask why more than once, probably more than twice…

The world (especially the world wide web) is full of surveys. Tell us how we're doing! Your satisfaction is important to us! We see...

The W. Edwards Deming Institute posted a video of Kevin Cahill, a grandson of Dr. Deming, welcoming people to the event and talking about innovation, or the desire that people have for it. But, they don't know what to do...

There's a really good article that was published by Modern Healthcare as a special report, written by Sabriya Rice. Sabriya spent a week observing a rapid improvement event (RIE) at the Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Illinois. It's an in depth article that, I think, very accurately reflects the reality that Lean is helpful, but the process isn't easy for a number of reasons.

I used to like the slogan, “Lean and Green are two sides of the same coin.” I even used it as a tagline in presentations in which I was arguing that there is a potential for significant synergy between the Lean and sustainability programs in my company.

Today's post is an excerpt from the collaborative ebook project Practicing Lean. I wrote the first two chapters of the book and then asked others to contribute their early stories about mistakes and lessons learned.

My guest for episode #229 is John Dyer, president of his consulting firm, JD&A, Inc., and a contributor for IndustryWeek.com. John started his career...