I recently read an article (a case study) about “Lean Six Sigma” in a publication. It’s not online, so I can’t link to it, nor do I really want to call them out by name. I didn’t like the article,…
There’s a great Taaichi Ohno quote that I was reminded of last week (see a previous post from 2010 on this). “Data is of course important in manufacturing, but I place the greatest emphasis on facts.” I was in northern…
TL;DR: Deming argued that the role of a manager of people is not judging performance, ranking employees, or enforcing authority–but creating trust, understanding systems, coaching for learning, and improving conditions so people can succeed. Dr. W. Edwards Deming‘s last book…
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…
In his kickoff to the Lean Startup Conference, Eric Ries promised that there was so much content and so many speakers crammed into the day that we would all have a headache at some point. Yes, that came true for…
While working in different environments and different industries, I’ve seen many work requirements that were deemed “non-negotiable” by management – and rightly so. For example, wearing safety glasses in a factory or wearing gloves when handling specimens in a hospital…
Our Kaizen Institute guide, Brad Schmidt (pictured above) talked to us on Monday about standardized work. He said, of the practice at Toyota, that it’s “voluntary standardization.” This is revolutionary thinking, I believe, for much of the Lean community and…
Preventable medical mistakes remain one of the most serious challenges in healthcare, yet many hospitals still struggle with learning from medical errors and preventing them from happening again. From emergency departments to pathology labs, the same types of errors continue…
In this month’s ASQ blog post, their CEO Paul Borawski writes a new post “The Intersection of Quality and Social Responsibility,” where he defines Social Responsibility succinctly as “Doing well by doing good.” One reason I have always been attracted…
Here is a transcript of last week’s podcast with Eric Ries talking about the impact that Toyota legend Taiichi Ohno had on his work and the Lean Startup movement. This discussion took place just after the 100th anniversary of Mr.…
Episode #142 brings us a returning guest (#115), Eric Ries, author of the best-selling book The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. In the book, Eric cites the work of Taiichi Ohno, including the “5…
Norman Bodek recorded this conversation with me in early 2012, on what would have been Taiichi Ohno’s 100th birthday. Having first met Ohno in 1981 and gone on to publish the English translation of Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production,…
