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Making Everyone Whole
While observing lean value streams across three continents, I encountered common resistance to process improvements, often attributed to "bad people."…
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A Trip to the Dentist That You’ll Enjoy
At AME's annual conference in Covington, KY, two weeks ago, Sami Bahri used his book, Follow the Learner, to base…
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How can firing people be part of developing people?
Dear Gemba Coach: Can you explain how you reconcile the principles of "developing people" and "firing people," especially in light…
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Five Missing Pieces in Your Standardized Work (Part 3 of 3)
John Shook circles back to offer an outline of how standardized work serves your Purpose, Process, and People, which can…
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Where do I start?
Dear Gemba Coach: I'm the operations manager of a healthcare training company. We conduct technical training to nurses in hospitals. We've…
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Five Missing Pieces in Your Standardized Work (Part 2 of 3)
John Shook delves more deeply into two of the five most often neglected elements, demonstrating the importance of practice and…
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5 Missing Pieces in Your Standardized Work (Part 1 of 3)
John Shook offers an overview of the five most frequent misunderstandings about this fundamental lean practice and expands on three…
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Lean and Financials
Dear Gemba Coach: During the webinar, you mentioned the importance of quantifying the financial impacts of lean efforts before introducing the…
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How Do I Convince People to Practice Lean?
Dear Gemba Coach: I have previous lean experience, and have now joined a large bureaucratic organization. I’m trying to apply the…
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How NUMMI Changed Its Culture
I received a lot of questions on-line and off about last week’s column on the pending closing of NUMMI. One…
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Kaizen is Fun? Really?
Dear Gemba Coach: I have been learning lean for three years now. My question to you: How is Kaizen 'fun'? Doing…
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How Can I Address the Conflict that Lean Creates?
Dear Gemba Coach, I have just finished reading The Lean Manager, and I was very taken by the chapter on…
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