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The Lab is Open
Why it's important to create a way to challenge assumptions and develop know-how, solve problems, and continuously improve--even during a crisis.
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How Cascading A3s Deploy Responsibility to Think as Well as Assign KPIs
During a recent virtual workshop on how to use the A3 problem-solving methodology, a CEO asked how to cascade A3s down through every level of…
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Article
Who To Move?
Dear Gemba Coach: "Kaizen Express" landed on my doormat this morning. While reading through I noticed that it states that if you get an operator saving…
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Tips for Following Through on Improvement Plan Execution
There is a critical difference between follow-through and follow-up during the A3 problem-solving process as David Verble, a veteran lean management coach with 30+ years…
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View Crises as Manageable Challenges Through Steady Lean Leadership
If you are using lean to tackle a series of crises, you may not be using lean in the first place, say a range of…
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Q & A with the Authors of Building a Lean Fulfillment Stream
A Conversation with Robert Martichenko and Kevin von Grabe, authors of Building a Lean Fulfillment Stream: rethinking your supply chain and logistics to create maximum value…
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Getting Religious About Problem Solving
Have you ever heard of a lean transformation guided by scriptures? The people at LifeWayChristian Resources' distribution center in Tennessee have! Whenever possible, they use…
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Article
Selling Water by the River
The most important challenge facing the lean community is that of sustaining both tangible and intangible improvements, says Dan Prock, who suggests that developing kaizen…
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Article
Lean Thinking is Horizontal Thinking
In the first of a two-part interview, Jim Womack, founder and senior advisor of LEI, talks with LeanBlog podcaster Mark Graban about a variety of lean…
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Foolish Consistency or Meaningful Standard Work?
How do organizations develop system-wide standard work and also create the conditions for local problem solving within departments? Dr. Grant Greenberg of University of Michigan…
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Effective Supervision 101
One of the biggest challenges for lean thinkers is translating lean thinking into lean doing, writes Stan Shaw. One of the best ways of making…
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Managing the Work from Startup to Scaleup
How one company tapped lean thinking and practice to design its business management system — and as a countermeasure to “big company disease.”
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Becoming Horizontal in a Vertical World
One of my favorite value-stream walks is with the senior managers of several organizations who share and jointly manage a value-creating process that stretches all…
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Bad People or A Bad Process?
Standing in a nightmare of a line at the airport prompted Jim Womack to reflect on this problem, and conclude that this was indeed a…
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Distilling Lean Ideas Down to Their Essence
Andrew Quibbell, lean leader and VP of a global enterprise, loves teaching lean concepts. Finding PowerPoint wholly ineffective at communicating lean thinking, he's begun drawing…
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From Chaos to Kaizen: The Visual Way
In another of his visual depictions of the fundamentals of lean, Andrew Quibell illustrates the process of transforming a chaos-plagued organization into one of continuous…
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Article
How do I set up an obeya room?
Dear Gemba Coach: I’d like to set up an obeya room – where should I start? What’s the simplest way to do it?
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Advice from the Gemba: Keeping Senior Leadership Committed
The cost savings of lean are not always apparent in the short term. If your senior leadership was skeptical going into the transformation, this situation…
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Article
When problems arise, what helps you keep your focus on the work?
Learning how to create and adhere to management standard work requires a clear understanding of where all team members add value in service of our…
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What's Your Company's Bottleneck?
"A bottleneck is the weak link in the system, the one constraint that prevents us from manufacturing that next toaster or frothing that next latte…
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