Once again, the WSJ has written about Lean at Starbucks (see my last post “Controversy over New Standardized Work at Some Starbucks Stores“) in Wednesday’s paper. The newest article is called “At Starbucks, Baristas Told No More Than Two Drinks“,…
The Wall Street Journal, sadly, has a long track record of not understanding Lean, as I’ve written about many times on my blog. There’s a major flare-up at least once a year, as listed below: 2011: 2010: 2009:…
OK, so I’ll admit I had a case of “rabbit ears” when I took the WSJ to task for calling the doomed BP Deepwater Horizon rig a “lean” operation. They were using the colloquial everyday use of “lean,” a term…
While I was on vacation, the news (the BBC World Service, mainly) focused quite a lot on the BP oil spill in the gulf, including the world’s reactions to the problem. While it seems a bit uncouth to criticize our…
An editorial written by an American Airlines pilot in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram caught my attention (“Unintended consequences of the Passenger Bill of Rights“). The pilot makes the case that the actions of Congress taken to prevent multi-hour passenger delays…
I’ve been really intrigued recently by the innovations in the “Lean Startup” movement. I’ve been reading Steve Blank’s book The Four Steps to the Epiphany about his “Customer Development” model (a process to parallel the traditional product development model). I’ll…
Hat tip to the WSJ for their review of the new book Get Rid of the Performance Review!: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing–and Focus on What Really Matters. Dr. Deming criticized the annual performance review decades ago and…
Surprising news today from California… from the WSJ. Toyota and Tesla are partnering up! Tesla Motors Inc. said it is partnering with Toyota Motors Inc. to make electric cars at a recently shuttered auto plant in Fremont, Calif., in a…
The idea of “surgical robots” is an interesting one. As a Lean guy, I’m naturally somewhat skeptical of technology – not to be a Luddite, but GM was the company that wanted the high-tech lights-out robotic factory (a vision that…
In recent years, healthcare has been learning a lot of lessons from aviation — including checklists and “Crew Resource Management,” as written about in the excellent books The Checklist Manifesto and Why Hospitals Should Fly. Aviation has gotten much…
Today’s post is a few Friday odds and ends about a new thing I’ve been involved, events I’m attending, and a new book I’m anxious to read (after I’m done reading a favorite old one).
I just finished Dr. Atul Gawande’s latest book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. I believe that this book is the single most important book of the year for ANY Lean leader, not just people working in healthcare.…