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.
Time for a low-carb Lean Six Sigma?: Stuff like this irritates me to no end: “Lean Manufacturing has us analyzing process flow and delay times at each activity within a process. And while Lean Manufacturing principles help speed things up,…
Wachter’s World : The Checklist Saga: Victory! This is great news for patients and is probably great news for those of you who have been following the “checklists” saga. The federal government has reversed its earlier decision to shutdown the…
I was wondering the other day about hospital advertising that you might see in your community (TV ads, billboards, newspaper ads). With the focus on improving quality and patient safety, is there a hospital somewhere that is advertising itself as…
I saw this ad (click on the photo for a larger, readable view) in the Wall Street Journal Monday. It’s an ad run by a patient advocacy organization called “RID” (Reduce Infection Deaths). The headline is “15 Steps You Can…
Flightblogger: Temporary Fasteners Causing Major Problems for 787 Program Ok, so Boeing isn’t using duct tape in their efforts to cobble together the first Dreamliner plane. But, this blog report I’ve linked to says they were using: “… over-the-counter parts…
by Mike Lopez All these lead paint toy scandals are only the beginning. On July 12, 2007, Businessweek ran a story, “Made in China: Faulty Tires.” This story foreshadowed the bloodbath to come. For every scandal, we can expect several high…
LEAD SINKS SPONGEBOB CHINA GOODS Sung to the TV theme… parody words by Mark Graban “Who’s covered in lead and lives under the sea?Spongebob! Squarepants! Whose China-made goods may endanger your kids?Spongebob! Squarepants! If dangerous journals be something you wishSpongebob!…
by Mike Lopez Today and tomorrow, I have the pleasure of taking part in a Lean Six Sigma summit being hosted by our corporation. One of today’s presenters was Mike Micklewright. He posed many challenging and introspective questions to our…
From today’s USA Today, on the heels of the recent bad quality from China news, which includes: Baby bibs with lead found at Wal-Mart Tainted seafood “Chemical pajamas” Anyway, click on the cartoon for a larger view. Maybe we need…
Running a hospital: Our Joint Commission Report The headline is my modification of a Deming expression, that management’s job is prediction. Statistical process control was one way of predicting future outcomes of a process (if you have a statistically stable…
China’s Chery Car: Safe At Any Speed For U.S. Market? – CNBC.com I had a number of readers email me this crash test video of a Chinese car sold in the Russia market. One reader asked what Chrysler was thinking…
Mattel is the latest victim in the “poison products from China” series (the “poison train,” as The Consumerist blog calls it). Victim is absolutely the wrong word to use, considering Mattel chose to source from China and admitted their own…
