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Article

Whatever Happened to Quality First: Rethinking Product Development in the Wake of Recalls and Catastrophic Failures

This Design Brief tackles the often-overlooked topic of building quality into new products. Learn how a customer-centric approach in development can prevent costly rework and…

by James Morgan, PhD

Article

What comes after Lean?

Lean practice is an ongoing process, it never ends. But what are we learning about the field? What comes after Lean in terms of emerging…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Put Your People at The Center of Your Development System

"It is your people that provide the skills, energy and creativity," writes Jim Morgan. "They are the single most important element of great product development…

by James Morgan, PhD

Article

How Standardized Work Integrates People with Process

In this three-part series, John Shook argues that "the Toyota Way is a socio-technical system on steroids" that brings together people (social) and processes (technical)…

by John Shook

Article

Why We Are a Nonprofit (And How You Can Benefit)

Every month I get calls and emails from folks thinking the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) is a consulting business and wanting to hire a sensei.…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD

Article

Fight for Your Lean Team

Managers, supervisors and coaches should mindfully support the storming and norming that teams require in order to grow an existing work team into a high…

Article

The Best Lean Healthcare Stories You May Have Missed

Looking ahead to the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit June 5-6, Lex Schroeder rounds up some of the best lean healthcare pieces on the Post.

by Lex Schroeder

Video

How Building in Learning and Knowledge Reuse Improves Product Development Success

Three leading practitioners share successful examples of how they built learning and knowledge reuse into their development process.

by James Morgan, PhD

Article

Improve Continuously by Mastering the Lean Kata

Lean is about learning, say Rose Heathcote and Daryl Powell. Learning to find real problems, learning to face the limits of our current knowledge in…

by Rose Heathcote and Daryl Powell

Article

Remembering Freddy Ballé

On October 31st, the Lean Movement lost one of its pioneers. In this piece, Dan Jones reflects on Freddy Ballé’s legacy.

by Dan Jones

Article

4 Actions that Solved My Lean Management Identity Crisis

Mike Orzen had lean management down cold – or so he thought. After all, he makes a living teaching it to managers and executives. But…

by Mike Orzen

Article

PDCA at the Plate

We know that "lean" is all about plan-do-check-act (PDCA). The challenge we all face in our everyday work is to answer the question, How do…

by John Shook

Article

Customers Should Determine the Businesses of the Future, Not the 1%

"We set up entrepreneurs to fail when we put all the emphasis on pitch day and the amount of money raised, instead of rewarding companies…

Video

What are the Three A's of the A3?

John Shook explains the three A's of the A3 in this video clip from the presentation that he and Lisa Yerian, chief improvement officer at…

by John Shook and Lisa Yerian, MD

Article

2024 Lean Summit Recap

LEI's Lean Summit showcased how leaders leverage lean for innovation from AI-powered healthcare to US manufacturing's revival.

by Matthew Savas

Article

Do I have the right attitude during gemba walks?

Dear Gemba Coach: How do I know if I have the right attitude during gemba walks? We’ve started doing those systematically, but I realize how…

by Michael Ballé

Article

What Lean Thinkers Think About The Gold Mine

Questions and comments†from readers to co-author Michael BallÈ about his book The Gold Mine.

by Michael Ballé

Article

Making Everyone Whole

While observing lean value streams across three continents, I encountered common resistance to process improvements, often attributed to "bad people." However, a deeper look reveals…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD

Article

Jim Womack on how lean compares with Six Sigma, Re-engineering, TOC, TPM, etc., etc.

It amazes me, but I still get lots of questions about how “lean” compares with Six Sigma, Total Productive Maintenance, Business Process Re-engineering, Demand-Flow, the…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD