Update: The charity auctions that ended last night raised $420 for Friends of the Orphans. Thanks to all who bid and bought (and donated – Martine Ehrenclou, Kaizen Institute, and 5S Supply). Color coding is a frequently-used visual management method…
As my wife and I are in the process of moving to San Antonio, we’ve visited the local Central Market grocery store there during our house hunting trips. Behind the prepared foods counter is a visual management indicator for employees…
Today’s post isn’t strictly about Lean, but I was reminded by a reader to mention something really cool that I saw in Wired Magazine late last year. In the Lean methodology, we focus a lot on “visual management” of processes…
I’m finally blogging about a Wall Street Journal article from just before Christmas – it’s still a generally interesting topic, I think. The article was “Holiday Help: People vs. Robots” It compares the labor and productivity strategies of two retailers…
Episode #108 is a discussion with Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, recorded in person at the 2010 Shingo Prize Conference in Salt Lake City. Gwendolyn was previously a guest on episodes #26, 45, and 49. Here, we chat about lean and the…
There’s a series of airplane photos, of South Africa’s Kalula Airlines, that have been going around the web, including being posted in some blogs as an example of the Lean principle of “visual management,” like this one: It made me…
Listen to my podcast with Nick One of my blog themes is the idea of “Like Lean” – practices that seem very much like the Lean philosophy and management system, but it’s not directly inspired by Toyota or Dr. Deming.…
by Dan Markovitz I took this picture of a UPS truck recently in NYC. (The orange signs say “SAFETY.”) At first I thought, “Great! UPS management cares about safety for its drivers. Terrific!” But then I looked at the signs…
Solving Health Care Problems By Design : NPR Thanks to Andrew B. for passing this along – audio and web text from NPR with some concepts that might sound a lot like Lean. In an interview with the CEO of…
… or if it’s too easy to make mistakes. One of my favorite books of all time is Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. Not strictly a Lean book… even if you’re not a product designer, the book teaches…
Lean Leap to Health Care #7 (click for Part #6) by Scott McDuffee “Where is the main entrance? Why do I follow the signs to HERE? Now you are telling me to go all the way down THERE! How far…
Thanks to Luke for this story, which he allowed me to share: I was touring a new client hospital with the Director of Inpatient Services today. She was explaining the renovations they—Äôd done in the birthing suites. We were about…