Article
How can I keep our lean management effort from becoming bureaucratic?
Dear Gemba Coach: Isn’t there a risk that all these lean tools in the workplace turn into yet more bureaucracy?
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Case Study
Lean Thinking Helps City of Chula Vista with Budget Crunch
After laying off 350 employees and still facing a continuing budget shortfall, the City of Chula Vista, CA, faced a seemingly impossible dilemma: how to…
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Article
Jay Johnson, president, Plumbers Supply Company
As part of a continuing series on leading lean transformations, the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) interviews executives from a variety of companies to explore the challenges that…
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Article
Ask Art: What Do You Look At in a "Pre-lean" Company?
Art Byrne identifies factors such as excess inventory and floor space, long turnaround times, and numerous other elements to study when considering the long-term value…
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Article
Students Take the Lead in JPW Fund Internship
A hands-on, gemba-based “lean internship” gives participants broad-based lean management experience backed by professional and academic coaches.
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Case Study
Change in Implementation Approach Opens the Door at EMCO to Greater Gains in Less Time
Many lean thinkers ask how they can accelerate the pace of a transformation or spread it to other facilities. EMCO Enterprise’s Des Moines plant has…
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Back to Basics
I often take advantage of relaxing holiday time to go over old things, take care of less pressing matters that I often don't have time…
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Does a lean transformation boost a company's stock price?
Dear Gemba Coach: You’ve worked with a lot of different companies in the public and private sectors. How have the stock prices of the public…
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I’m struggling to understand exactly what people mean by a “lean system”?
Dear Gemba Coach: I’m struggling to understand exactly what people mean by a “lean system”?
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Columbus Public Schools Use Process Thinking to Improve Academic Achievement
Principals and staff at Columbus, Ohio, schools created current states and future states of a diagnostic testing process in order to identify students' weaknesses and to improve the processes…
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Should we have our own TPS "house"?
Dear Gemba Coach: My management wants to build our own version of the TPS (Toyota Production System) house in order to standardize our lean approach.…
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Reflections From Ten Years of Michael Ballé's Gemba Coach
Since his first Gemba Coach column of ten years ago, Michael Balle has consistently tied his advice to a faithful application of core Toyota Production…
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Article
The Lean Genie Problem
"For leaders and CI professionals, it’s not practical to rely on the team you’re working with to institute every change that’s needed each time you…
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Article
Observe Without Expectations
What does it really mean to go to the gemba and closely observe the work that takes place there? Are you aware of your own…
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Article
The Power of Ma in Creating Cognitive Space
When we lead with respect for people, we need to truly understand that people work in different ways, argues Jim Benson in this piece about…
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Article
"Roll"-ing Out Lean at Kura Sushi
Self-professed "lean geek" Katie Anderson has eaten several meals at Kura Sushi restaurants and shares her observations on what she sees as lean principles at…
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Article
Constancy of Purpose
The first of Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s 14 Points is "create constancy of purpose for continual improvement of products and service to society." When I…
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How Do We Sustain A3 Thinking in our Organization?
Dear Gemba Coach: My firm has been investing a lot of time and energy this year in teaching A3 thinking to our staff. The workshops…
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How Do I Change the Culture?
Dear Gemba Coach: I come from a company quite advanced in lean and I’ve joined a new firm as technical director. I’d like to apply lean…
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What is your opinion about transformation process steps?
Dear Gemba Coach: What is your opinion about transformation process steps? First we choose a problem and start problem-solving processes (A3 or 8-step methods) and…
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