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…

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…

by Lex Schroeder

Article

When a Passion for Caring Becomes a Commitment to Process Improvement: Judy Worth and Karl Ohaus on Lean Thinking for Healthcare Organizations

LEI interviews lean practitioners and co-authors of Perfecting Patient Journeys Judy Worth and Karl Ohaus about the potential for lean thinking in healthcare, the value…

by Lex Schroeder

Article

Emergency Departments Use Lean Principles in an Effort to Perfect Patient Journeys

Sixty hospital emergency departments in Michigan formed a collaborative to apply the value-stream improvement methodology to cut the length of stay for patients.

by Chet Marchwinski

Article

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.”

by Michael Ballé and Nicolas Chartier

Article

Interview with José Roberto Ferro and Robson Gouveia about the book Daily Management to Execute Strategy

An interview with the authors of Daily Management to Execute Strategy, a practical guide to building an effective daily management system in your organization.

by Robson Gouveia and José R. Ferro, PhD

Article

Getting Started with Hoshin Kanri: Answers to Common Questions

Read an excerpt from Managing on Purpose, a practical guide to implementing hoshin kanri. Coming March 2025.

by Lean Enterprise Institute and Mark Reich

Article

America’s $4.5 Trillion Healthcare Problem: A Call for Radical Lean Redesign

In this issue of The Design Brief, LEI explores how to resolve the exorbitant cost of America's healthcare system through lean product and process development.

by James Morgan, PhD

Press Release

Gemba-Based Education for Supply Chain and Distribution Professionals

Lean Enterprise Institute and LeanCor, a third-party logistics provider, partner to offer hands-on workshop.

Article

Let Your A3s Lead

Coach Eric Ethington shares how simply getting started with A3s as a means of engaging others in this process is a tactical approach that works.

by Eric Ethington

Article

Build Awareness Through Seeing How Eliminating Waste Reduces Costs

As we grow our people we must continue to add new dimensions of thinking to engage them in their work and to empower them to…

by Ernie Richardson and Tracey Richardson

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?

by Michael Ballé

Article

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…

by Andrew Quibell

Article

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…

by Andrew Quibell

Article

Are You Making Enough Mistakes?

How comfortable are you making mistakes? Do you make it safe for your team members to make mistakes? Boaz Tamir, Founder of Israel Lean Enterprise…

by Boaz Tamir

Article

It's Not the Crisis; It's How You Respond to It

He probably didn't ask for a problem of quite this magnitude, but like it or not, Akio Toyoda has his crisis. Akio took the reigns…

by John Shook

Article

Should I use an A3 report to kick off a problem-solving effort?

Dear Gemba Coach: Should I use an A3 report to kick off a problem? I encourage my managers to tell me about their problems on…

by Michael Ballé

Article

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…

by Brent Wahba

Article

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…

by Grant Greenberg

Article

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…

by Ken Eakin and Chris Vogel