Article

What Finance Teams Can Learn from the Lean Practice of ‘Go See, Ask Why, Show Respect,’ - Part 2

A "lean accounting" coach illustrates what "go see, ask why, and show respect" means for Finance and Accounting professionals.

Video

Art of Lean on Situational Leadership, Part 4: Supportive Style, from Basketball to Toyota

Part four continues the series' trajectory of further contextualizing situational leadership and lean thinking. By picking personal examples from his life, Art Smalley guides you…

by Art Smalley

Article

The Chief Cause of Problems is Solutions

"In complex organizations, we [oversimplify] problems, try to fix them as painlessly as possible, cross our fingers, and move on to the next fire," writes…

by Brent Wahba

Article

We're working hard on problem solving so why don't I see any improvement in our problem-solving capability?

Dear Gemba Coach: We're working hard on problem solving, asking "why" repeatedly, and looking for root causes, but I'm afraid I fail to see any…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Anatomy of a Lean Leader (Introduction)

For 30 years, Jerry Bussell studied leadership while bringing lean practices to companies such as Medtronic and becoming a passionate, well-known advocate for lean. In this…

by Jerry Bussell

Article

Avoiding Dashboard Wallpaper

Build a system of dashboards up and down the organization, says Leslie Barker. Connect them so ideas flow upward and support flows to the idea.…

by Leslie Barker

Article

The Lean Farm: Better Food, Productivity, and Profits -- with Less Work

Farming may be the next industry ripe for disruption. For example, Ben Hartman grew up on a 500-acre corn and soybean farm where success meant…

by Ben Hartman

Article

So Long 2009 - Hello 2010!

Whew, what a year! Most everyone I know is eager to escort the hard times of 2009 out the door in hopes of a more…

by John Shook

Article

It’s About the Tools, Not the Terms

"I’ve never been a big fan of lean lingo," says John McCullough of Crayola. "It may sound expert-like, but I’ve always found its use to…

by John McCullough

Article

Why a Plan for Every Part Is Essential to Lean Transformations

“What’s needed instead is system kaizen in which the material-handling system for an entire facility, supplying every value stream, is redesigned to create a bulletproof…

by Doug Bartholomew

Article

Does lean change how you think about business?

Dear Gemba Coach: I can see that lean changes how one thinks about business, but can’t quite put my finger on it. If you had…

by Michael Ballé

Article

The Fight for the Meaning of Lean

"It seems like every one and their dog is doing Lean," writes Michael Ballé. "But what 'Lean' are we talking about? Is it the 'to…

by Michael Ballé

Article

How do we get our boss to stop confusing inventory management with lean?

Dear Gemba Coach: Our new boss is a lean supporter and had us reduce drastically all inventories. Now we have missing parts all over the…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Why Coaching is a Core Skill of a Lean Leader

If "learning by doing" at the gemba is the best way to learn lean thinking and practices (and it is), coaching is THE skill leaders…

by John Shook

Article

Getting to Sustainability

Sustaining gains from kaizen thinking is one of the hardest, and certainly most misunderstood, aspects of this work. It’s misunderstood because the actual change takes…

by Ernie Richardson and Tracey Richardson

Video

The Art of Lean: Use These Tools to Help You Improve a Process, Part 2

Take a closer look into this four-step approach that will help you "pinpoint the tricky parts" of a process as you work to improve it,…

by Art Smalley and Art Smalley

Article

GM Veteran Lou Farinola Responds to, “Why hasn’t GM learned from NUMMI?”

John Shook discusses how GM learned from NUMMI with a former GM executive

by John Shook

Article

“A Roadmap to Lean Healthcare Success” Webinar: Follow-up Questions and Answers

The Lean Enterprise Institute's webinar "A Roadmap to Lean Healthcare Success" with John Toussaint, MD, CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, drew thousands…

Article

What does “separating human work from machine work" mean?

Dear Gemba Coach: What does “separating human work from machine work” mean? How does it matter?

by Michael Ballé

Video

Why You Need a Better Process Development System

Two veteran lean product and process development coaches share the benefits of improving this critical, too often overlooked part of bringing new products and services…

by , Eric Ethington and Matt Zayko