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Beyond Toyota
Weíve won the battle of ideas on how to operate and improve processes. But creating management systems and organizations that can practice (not just preach)…
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Grit, PDCA, Lean and other four-letter words
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of what author Angela Duckworth calls Grit. She defines grit as a sort of mash-up between passion…
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Designed In Quality
Extraordinary quality is not only designed into the product, it is designed into the development process itself, says Jim Morgan, who suggests that the next…
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Why Doesn't Lean Have a Seat at the Table?
Why hasn’t Lean spread more widely, asks Steven Spear, suggesting that it has not been framed in a way that addresses the strategic concern of…
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What do effective leaders actually do every day? GTS4
So many of us know the value of lean thinking and practice, but what do lean leaders actually do every day? Tracey Richardson offers a…
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Rebuilding Homes and Disaster Recovery Processes
When Liz McCartney and Zack Rosenburg left their careers to help desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina rebuild, they knew nothing about construction or lean management.…
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Focus Your Operating System To Bring Your Strategy to Life
A strategy can just turn into wallpaper if you don't have the right systems in place to support it. Jim Morgan has seen this happen…
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Your Gemba Isn't the Only Gemba to Walk
We all know the critical importance of gemba walks in our organization. But what many of us forget is that sometimes visiting OTHER gembas can…
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Counteracting the Big Project Blues
Lean thinking is well and good, Erin Urban says, but often it takes time to see the real fruits of your labor. "Not all improvement…
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"But TPS Doesn't Apply to Us...."
Yes, cars are not weaving looms. Patients are not cars, either. Airplanes are not cars. Electric vehicles are not the same as internal-combustion engine vehicles.…
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Pursuing Dreams, Facing Reality
In this letter shared to his fellow Menloians, Rich Sheridan acknowledges the new reality they all must fact, and commits to making the most with…
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Toyota and Sudden Acceleration: Facts from the NASA Report
NASA just released its highly anticipated report about the Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA) charge in Toyota vehicles. The verdict is in. And Toyota’s electronic throttle…
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Managing Suppliers
Dear Gemba Coach: We've done a lot of kaizen work in production and have something of a pull system running. We've started measuring on time delivery…
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4 Core Principles of Lean Product and Process Development Explained
The ability to consistently create “insanely great” products, as Steve Jobs would say, is the ultimate competitive advantage. But many companies struggle to develop profitable…
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Lessons From Japan: Day Three
Is Toyota improving productivity or developing people? What we saw today suggests not just that the answer is both but that the two are inseparable,…
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Fundamentals Redux--An Appreciation of Kaizen Express
Kaizen Express is the expression of an approach to kaizen that is at once a return to basics while at the same time emphasizing the…
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What Level of a Problem Requires an A3?
Here are some thoughts to help you determine what type of problem you have, and how to apply A3 thinking to it most productively. You…
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Using A3 Problem Solving to Make the Thinking Process Visible
In this excerpt from The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership, authors Jeff Liker and Gary Convis share a story of how Gary learned the value…
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