Article

A Sensei in One's Own Land

In his first piece for The Lean Post, John Shook addresses the question of if, when, and how you and your organization should work with…

by John Shook

Article

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…

by Lean Leaper

Article

Respect the Customer By Respecting Your Worker

Lean provides us with a different approach to this vicious cycle. Build a management system in your company that allows employees to make the best…

by Mark Reich

Article

How One Company is Using Lean Fundamentals When Facing Disruption

Companies that have been built using lean principles are turning to these core ideals when confronting the unique challenges caused by today’s pandemic. Here's how…

by Michael Ballé

Article

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…

Article

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…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD

Article

Is promising that lean will make work more meaningful disrespectful to people?

Dear Gemba Coach: Can lean really make work more meaningful for everybody? Isn’t this overpromising to workers and disrespectful to them because management really can't…

by Michael Ballé

Article

How can I make sure my teams do kaizen the right way?

Dear Gemba Coach: How can I make sure my teams do kaizen the right way?

by Michael Ballé

Article

Rather than narrow problem solving, shouldn't we look for disruptive breakthroughs?

Dear Gemba Coach: How can a narrow focus on problem solving help us to find innovative solutions? Shouldn’t we be looking for disruptive breakthrough instead?

by Michael Ballé

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…

by Michael Ballé

Article

What's the main quality I should look out for in hiring a lean coach?

Dear Gemba Coach: I’m in the process of hiring a Lean Coach for my team and I wondered if there was any one quality I…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Is there a lean way of delegating?

Dear Gemba Coach: I’m an entrepreneur and I used to micromanage everything, quite successfully. Now the firm has grown and I’m trying to delegate. How…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Ask Art: How Do We Prevent Backsliding?

Backsliding is inevitable. "The key is to anticipate the backslide and take early, aggressive, organized steps to prevent it from happening before it starts," writes…

by Art Byrne

Article

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.

by Josh Howell

Article

Why Leadership Needs to Drive the Bus

"Lean change can start from the bottom-up, I won’t say that it can’t, but the situation needs to flip quickly to leadership so that leadership…

Article

How Menlo's Virtual Teams Are Lighting the Way Forward

While Menlo Software continues to adjust to the never-ending changes caused by COVID-19, founder Rich Sheridan takes solace that they are teeing up these challenges…

Article

Advice from the Gemba: Personal Kanbans for Lean Beginners

Kanban boards. For many of us, they were the first visual management tools we used that taught us the benefits of lean. They're simple, effective…

by Cameron DiGregorio and Kristen Gandek

Article

From Supply Chains to Value Streams

Fifteen years ago I first began to study lean supply chains, by observing Toyota’s inbound parts supply chain and later their aftermarket parts distribution system.…

by Dan Jones

Article

Public Service: Lean's Next Frontier?

John O'Donnell and Lex Schroeder share the thinking behind LEI's new Public Service Value Network and invite you to contribute to a new and fast-growing…

by Lex Schroeder

Faculty

Alan Noss

Alan received his introduction to lean when he worked for 13 years in the Service Parts Logistics Division of Toyota. He was responsible for training,…