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We Have Been (Lean) Thinking
In the many years since we launched Lean Thinking, events amply confirm our long-held view that managers will try anything…
Read article Lean Thinking for Air Travel
Recently I got a call from an aide to Don Carty at American Airlines (their Chairman who resigned this past…
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LSG Sky Chefs Caters to New Market Realities
Business at airline caterer LSG Sky Chefs dropped 30% when airlines cut flights after the terrorist attacks on September 11,…
View case study Here’s to Toyota
More than twenty years ago Dan Jones and I made an important discovery. On a trip to Japan we concluded…
Read article Taking a Value Stream Walk at Firm A
I was out walking through a company this past week, something I often do. The firm I visited had asked…
Read article LEI looks for success stories to share
I routinely end my talks by offering to give anyone 15 minutes of fame in my and Dan Jones’s next…
Read article Move Your Operations to China? Do some lean math first.
I recently got a phone call from a reporter for The Wall Street Journal with a simple but provocative question:…
Read article Seasoned Lean Effort Avoids “Flavor-of-the-Month” Pitfall
What comes first in a lean transformation? What comes next? Where do tools like six sigma fit? Here's an overview…
View case study Year-end Message About the State of the Lean Community
As I've noted before with some sadness, economic distress is good for lean thinking. Taiichi Ohno said long ago that…
Read article Substituting Money for Value Stream Management
I've been traveling again since I last wrote, this time to visit a household-name American company trying to pursue perfection…
Read article The “Right Sequence” for Implementing Lean
One of the best things about leading the Lean Enterprise Institute is that I travel widely to learn how things…
Read article What do you need from LEI?
August 1 marks the fifth anniversary of the Lean Enterprise Institute. In our first five years we've conducted Lean Summits…
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