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
TPS, the Thinking People System
The twin pillars of just-in-time and jidoka help support a full model about how to achieve customer satisfaction from employee satisfaction, through teamwork and respect,…
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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
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
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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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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Book Value: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Is clutter at work or at home getting you down? LEI Senior Editor Tom Ehrenfeld reviews Marie Kondo's new book, "The Life Changing Magic of…
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Article
Unique Philanthropy Does Well by Doing Good
An internship program enables students to attain real-world lean management experience while helping community service organizations reach more people.
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Article
As a facilitator, how much do I have to know about an area targeted for improvement?
Dear Gemba Coach: As a lean "facilitator" in my organization, how important is it to gain a deep understanding of the "area" that is being…
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Herman Miller’s Experiment in Excellence
With initial support from the Toyota Supplier Support Center, Herman Miller cultivates experimental thinkers who make process improvements every day. Their work has yielded dramatic…
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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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Case Study
Toyota Partners with Nonprofit to Rebuild Homes and Lives
When the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina receded, they uncovered tens of thousands of ruined homes in devastated areas like St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. But…
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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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The Anatomy of Innovation
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Shadyside enjoys a reputation for innovation, due, in part, to its recognition that finding and fixing broken processes is…
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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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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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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
Ask Art: What Do You Mean When You Say Run Your Company On Your Operational Excellence Goals?
The Lean company competes on its operational excellence goals, says Art Byrne. These stretch goals must be aggressive in nature and deployed down to every…
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