Article

Why ‘Framing’ is Crucial to Leadership and Encouraging Team Unity

A personal reflection of a company’s response to challenges brought on by Covid explores the fundamental thinking that drives how leaders lead — and explains…

by , Michael Ballé and Nicolas Chartier

Article

What Matters When Giving — or Accepting — the Gift of Lean Thinking and Practice

Some “flavors” of lean are better than others. Here’s a description of one of the best — contrasted with examples of bad leadership practices.

by Josh Howell

Article

Public-Private Partnerships Lead To More Effective Government in WA

Since 2012, Washington state government has received more than 2,000 hours of volunteer advice, training, coaching, and/or facility tours from 132 lean experts representing 51…

by Darrell Damron

Article

Stability Before Innovation

Given its foundational strengths of stable and robust product development, production, supplier development, and general management system, Toyota is well poised to deliver innovative solutions…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD

Article

Problem Solving Fast and Slow

"There are many paradoxes about the Toyota Production System," writes Ben Root. "Speed is certainly one of them. 'Do it slowly, but quickly.'" Read more.

by Ben Root

Article

LPPD Under the Sea: Efficient Product Design with Subsea 2.0

In this excerpt from the new book Designing the Future, authors Jim Morgan and Jeff Liker share the case study of TechnipFMC's work on a…

by Jeffrey Liker and James Morgan, PhD

Article

GTS⁶ + E³ = DNA (Break the Code for Standardization, Sustainability, and Kaizen)

There's no "formula" for doing Lean well, but there are principles and practices that keep you on track. Read Tracey Richardson's (memorable) advice for leading…

by Tracey Richardson

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…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD

Article

Why is Flow Easy, and Quality Hard?

Dear Gemba Coach: My lean team has become proficient at teaching flow but it's not gaining traction when it comes to quality issues. Do you…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Why haven't lean tools changed our culture?

Dear Gemba Coach: I’m part of a team that has been tasked to implement lean tools across the company to drive continuous improvement actions, and…

by Michael Ballé

Article

After improving processes with help from a consultant, how do I sustain kaizen in my department? My teams are hard to motivate.

Dear Gemba Coach: How do I sustain kaizen in my department? We’ve had a consultant help us with workshops, and we did improve our processes,…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Two managers I relied on a lot are still fighting a two-year-old pull system and creating a lot of conflict on the team. Is this normal?

Dear Gemba Coach: I’m two years into establishing a pull system through my plant and two of my key managers are still fighting the system…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Leaning Healthcare

Healthcare is the next great industry to begin the Lean journey. The existing model in which the hospital doctor acting as a skilled craftsperson effectively…

by Dan Jones

Article

Mapping a Reading List to Lean

We humans want to see what is happening, understand how we and our colleagues best collaborate, solve problems, make good decisions, and have an insatiable…

by Jim Benson

Article

Using the Logic of Lean Thinking to Combat Racism, Part 1 of 2

To create new anti-racist organizations, leaders need to fully embrace the five principles of lean: value vs. waste, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. But…

by Christopher D. Chapman

Article

What “Co-Learning” Across Industries Looks Like in Practice

"In April, as part of a 2-day capstone learning event for Cardinal Health, we brought the newest wave of Lean Leader graduates together to visit…

by Danielle McGuiness

Article

The Value Stream Manager

Objectives of This Paper:The Lean Enterprise Institute receives many questions about how to select the right person to be the value-stream manager. In some cases we are getting…

by Lean Enterprise Institute

Case Study

Linking Lean Thinking to the Classroom

As team members sat down to discuss hiring a new production employee, the conversation gradually centered on the need to determine if operations could be…

by Chet Marchwinski

Article

Lean Continuous Improvement as Culture

Author David Verble shares three fundamental ways that a lean culture bases its practice of continuous improvement on the principle of respect.

Article

Summit Highlights: Healthcare Value Network and Bahri Dental Group Bring Lean Into Healthcare

A recap of two talks at the 2012 Lean Transformation Summit: Dr. John Toussaint's talk on the work of the Healthcare Value Network and lean's…

by Lex Schroeder