Happy Easter

Happy Easter from the Lean Blog.  God Bless!

Lean has a long ways to go……

I’m in Costa Rica this week for a little R&R but of course couldn’t help but make a few Lean observations, much to the dismay of my wife! Anyway, in case we think we will ever get to the pinnacle of Lean, which of course we all know the journey never ends, there is plenty [...]

Let’s have a meeting to kill meetings!

Meetings….UUUGGHHHH.  There have been many posts about meetings and how many you have indicate the health of your operation.  This is one of my favorites from last year by Dan Markovitz at Timeback Management. It seems everyone gripes about them, even those that call them, but we all still keep having them?  Some are necessary [...]

Leadership Re-directions: Change is bad?

We’re all familar with the old “Change is good” saying!  Have you ever experienced a natural change in leadership and had a director come in and completely revamp the way your team reports, plans, etc?  Sometimes this is a good thing and often necessary in a lean transformation.  But what if you have been on your way down the path and [...]

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the lean blog.  While we have received many gifts from the Lean community that inspire and improve us and our organizations, today is the day we remember the greatest gift of all……God’s son in the flesh! Although we all make sacrifices for the good of our teams and organizations, none compare to [...]

Great Post – The Silly Cycle

Just came across a great post here by Christian Paulsen at the Lean Leadership Blog.  He compares the PDCA cycle that Deming preached to the “Silly Cycle” that replaces the PCA with Do, Do, Do.  This post really hit home with the way we run around “doing” things rather than thinking them through. As a [...]

Happy Thanksgiving…..Be thankful for Lean

Happy Thanksgiving from the Lean Is Good blog.  As I reflect back, there is so much to be thankful for it amazes me.  Often times in our blogospheres we rant and rave about all the negative things like lack of leadership, overburdened workloads, lack of commitment, etc.  However, take a minute to think about all [...]

Aim Your 5 Why Well!

We’ve all heard the saying “guns don’t shoot people; people who pull the trigger shoot people.”  Regardless of which side of the gun control argument you may be on, the same also holds true for 5 why problem solving!  Has anyone in your organization pointed to a 5 why and told you they don’t work [...]

Two Great Posts

Recently read two great posts that we at the Lean Blog have tried to discuss but I think the authors have done a much better job of trying to explain the points. First, Bill Waddell at Evolving Excellence blog here discussed the waste of the annual budgeting that takes place in most companies.  It’s crazy [...]

Goalpost Quality – Taguchi Losses and SPC

Delighting customers with a high quality product that performs to expectations is one of the best ways to secure and grow a business. This results in long term security for each player in the extended value stream.  Today I’d like to discuss a couple of perspectives on manufacturing quality products and how it affects customers.  [...]

Insanity Metrics

Remember the saying “don’t put off until tomorrow that which you can do today?”  I developed a new variance of this old saying based on some recent events.  “Don’t put off until tomorrow that which you can do today, unless is clashes with a concrete head metric!” The addition stems around the postponing of a kaizen event [...]

Just Open My Mouth and Go to the Gemba

I had an interesting experience at the dentist the other day that models what I see on the shop floor over and over.  I entered the office with a known problem that was diagnosed by another office.  They of course wanted new x-rays since they didn’t receive the ones from the previous office.  They assured [...]

Leadership is Leadership

I had the privilege of attending “the nines” leadership network today at my church.  If you’re not familiar, it’s a shotgun blast of over a hundred leaders talking about game changing events from their lives.  Each is around 6 minutes long and is mostly pastors but has some business leaders sprinkled in as well.  It [...]

Let people make mistakes? Tough Love of Leadership!

While leading an event this week, I came across a common situation that I have faced over the years.  The group, very new to pull, wanted to implement a particular piece of the pull system in an exact same way that I have failed in a past life.  Despite my best efforts through education and [...]

Remember – We Want to See Problems

Ok, you’ve followed your formula for your lean transformation.  Maybe you value stream mapped, put in some standard work, developed some pull systems, improved your critical changeover times, trained all your teammates, and ran a few simulations.  Now the big moment comes and you flip the switch on the system.  You are now running to [...]