After the nice response to Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, I often get asked, “So, what’s your next book going to be?” (other than the upcoming Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen, that is). I’ve had people suggest writing something about…
Here in New Orleans, there was a problem with the city water today and there’s a 24-hour “boil water” order in effect through tomorrow morning. We could play a good game of the 5 Whys: Why can’t we drink the…
I saw this at an office supply store today (but didn’t buy it). For all of the coffee-making problems I have, tipping mugs over isn’t one of them (knock on wood). This mug is advertised as having a clever mechanism…
Interesting article here: “Case in Point: Avoiding martial-arts moves by ‘pulling the Andon cord‘” that was in the Washington Post, of all places. The piece, written by a duo of a professor and a consultant, attempts (I think) to make…
It’s been a month now since my wife and I moved to San Antonio. I’ve been on the road most or all of the last four weeks… so my home office is still very unsettled. Today, I’m working on that…
Here are links to some more articles I’ve read recently that might be of interest on a number of Lean related topics: Twin boys die after morphine overdose (understaffing, poor training, & other system issues) Two years on, gov’t says…
As I’ve mentioned, my wife and I are in the process of moving from suburban Fort Worth to San Antonio. As we have potential buyers coming through the house, one thing I have to be mindful of is NOT turning…
Continuing this first week of the year’s theme of using Lean principles to improve our lives, I’m going to write about two pieces of technology that can help prevent two different types of health problems, particularly in the elderly. The…
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…
Thanks to my friend and fellow author Karen Martin for taking this picture while in Calgary. Even if you don’t wear high heeled shoes, I think you can appreciate the attempt at error proofing. Karen and I both wondered if…
Mark’s note: Today, I’m happy to welcome back an old Lean Blog contributor, Andy Wagner. He takes a more personal turn here than most of my guest bloggers for the next two weeks, writing about the application of Lean thinking…
Mark’s note: Today’s guest post is from a Michigander (I prefer that term over Michiganian, but I digress). Jon Wetzel, among other things, is very involved with the Michigan Lean Consortium and he lives very near where I grew up.…
