Article

How Accounting “Squirrels” Can Ferret Out Waste

While other functions are busy as beavers looking for waste during a lean transformation, your accounting staff is like a squirrel with its head stuck…

Article

Frontiers and Fundamentals

Thank you to the over 350 of you who replied to my letter of last month by sending in suggestions for a Learning Session at…

by John Shook

Article

Lessons Learned from My Lean Sensei about “Customer Service”

"To 'get' Lean we have to change our specs, and no longer see processes as sequences of dependent tasks, but as sequences of dependent CHOICES,"…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Role of the Sensei

Dear Gemba Coach: I often wonder how senseis skip to new areas--from the shop floor to the back office, or to healthcare. Is this leap…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Accounting and Finance - How Can We Help?

I’ve been thinking about what we as Lean Finance and Accounting practitioners can be doing during this time of “business-as-unusual” and wanted to offer a…

Article

How Do I Lead An Existing Lean Initiative as a Newcomer?

Dear Gemba Coach: The head of the lean initiative in our company has left and they gave me the job. I’ve been asked to review our…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Lean, Agile, Joy

Rich Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations, shares his thoughts on why the lean software and lean manufacturing communities need each other.

by Richard Sheridan

Article

When the Toyota Way Meets Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is not a disruptive force that makes TPS irrelevant, but rather can be an enabler that builds on TPS culture and thinking, argues…

by Jeffrey Liker

Article

PDCA thinking and the NCAA March Madness tournament

"There is so much thinking that goes into this thing called 'Bracketology,' which gives sports fans a way to 'grasp the situation' of their favorite…

by Ernie Richardson and Tracey Richardson

Article

An interview with Gary Convis on A3 thinking and lean leadership

Lean veteran Gary Convis explains how the A3 report serves as a flexible tool that develops leaders and aligns important goals across plants, divisions, and…

Article

Lean in Sales and Marketing -- Addressing a Market Need: An Interview with Brent Wahba

A specialist in lean and problem-solving strategies and techniques, Brent Wahba is the author of  The Fluff Cycle(And How to End it By Solving REAL…

Article

Boost the Power of PDCA By Tackling the Challenge of Self-Awareness

While PDCA is the engine of lean discovery, argues Mike Orzen, building self-awareness into this scientific method truly unlocks the power of lean.

by Mike Orzen

Article

The Problem of Sustainability

I recently got a call from an old friend who led one of the first lean implementation efforts in healthcare in the mid-1990s. He has…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD

Article

The Real Lean Challenge: Levelling Production

Most lean practitioners focus primarily on the waste elimination aspect of Lean and ignore levelled production. In his second piece for the Post, Ian Glenday…

by Ian Glenday

Article

How Should We Relate Lean Projects to KPIs in a Large Company?

Dear Gemba Coach: We have started a continuous improvement process with dedicated lean experts at each site. Until now our focus was on training. We…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Leadership Q&A: Karl Wadensten, president, VIBCO

From the LEI senior executive series on lean leadership:In the first couple years of its lean transformation VIBCO, Inc. saved over $2 million in inventory, cut…

by Chet Marchwinski

Article

Enduring Lessons from The Birth of Lean

Lean was never conceived as a new and comprehensive system designed to replace conventional enterprise. Rather, as shown in The Birth of Lean, it evolved…

by Tom Ehrenfeld

Case Study

How a Bakery Uses Lean Thinking to Drive Growth

A lean system that runs like clockwork and constant attention to customer service enables Barcelona-based 365.café to achieve the seemingly impossible: supplying 55 bakeries out…

by Roberto Priolo

Article

Yes, Lean is a Strategy!!!

Is lean a strategy? Absolutely YES, says lean author and thinker Orry Fiume. Replying to feedback on his new book, Orry says that strategy is…

by Orest (Orry) Fiume

Article

How Do I Lead Change Without Discouraging Employee Engagement?

Dear Gemba Coach: How do you balance the sometime conflicting practices of gaining employee engagement while ensuring that everyone remains faithful to known lean tools…

by Michael Ballé