Tag: Quality

Quality: Leadership, Systems Thinking, and Continuous Improvement

Quality doesn’t come from inspection, pressure, or choosing between speed and accuracy. It comes from well-designed systems, capable processes, and leaders who focus on learning instead of blame. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on quality through a Lean and Deming lens—covering psychological safety, metrics, variation, leadership behavior, healthcare quality, and why sustainable improvement depends on fixing systems rather than managing people harder.

Lean Whiskey #47: Decriminalizing Medical Errors, Mouse Jiggling, and New (to...

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Listen: In Episode 47 of the Lean Whiskey podcast, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban attempt another experiment with our format, covering a range of quick-hit...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: July 12, 2024

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Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly...

Karen Martin on the Power of Mistake Proofing in Lean Management

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Karen Martin and Mark Graban discuss mistake proofing in lean management, why "zero harm" is a meaningful aspiration, and how building quality at the...

Preventing Surgical Errors: Effective Strategies Over Warning Signs in Operating Rooms

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This is a Chat GPT / Dall-E generated image: It's silly, right? I've never seen a sign like this in an operating room. And I'm...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: May 17, 2024

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Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly...

Rewriting the Management Gospel: Lessons from Hayes, Abernathy, and the Frontlines...

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Professors Robert H. Hayes and William J. Abernathy have harsh words about a common, if not typical style of American management: "...an overdependence on analytical...

Don Petersen, Ford CEO Who Learned from Dr. Deming, Passes Away...

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The other day, I read about the passing of Donald E. Peterson, who was a key CEO for Ford Motor Company in the 1980s...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: April 19, 2024

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Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly...

Boeing’s Leadership Failure: How Executives Waved Off Lean and Put Safety...

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TL;DR: Boeing's 737 MAX failures weren't caused by frontline workers--they were the predictable result of leadership choices that prioritized schedule over safety and ignored...

Ryan McCormack’s Operational Excellence Mixtape: March 22, 2024

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Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly...

Closing Boeing’s “Shadow Factory” is Harder Than it Sounds

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For a long time, I've heard the phrase "the hidden factory" used to describe various forms of waste in a factory, including rework operations...

The Boeing 737 MAX Problem Isn’t “Idiots”–It’s Systems, Culture, and Preventable...

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tl;dr: The Boeing 737 MAX incident wasn't caused by careless workers. It was the predictable result of weak systems, rushed production, poor mistake-proofing, and...
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