Faculty
Mark Reich
During his extensive career, Mark has led lean transformations and coached executives in various companies and business sectors. Clients include GE Appliances and Ingersoll Rand…
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Article
Why You Need to Understand The Purpose of Purposeful Enterprise
Work with your team to articulate your purpose, as this shared statement will align the many aspects of your pragmatic lean improvement work, says Tom…
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Podcast
What’s the Problem?: Andrew Lingel Discusses Transforming a Family Business through Knowledge, Grit, and Outrage
In this What's the Problem? podcast with Matt Savas, President Andrew Lingel of United Plastic Fabricating shares how he helped lead a transformation in this…
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Article
A Body Needs Skeleton and Muscle to Work
How do you create alignment across the organization when you have separate departments, value streams, and executives with conflicting priorities? Hoshin kanri. Mark Reich explains.
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Page
Custom Training
In our customized coaching and learning experiences, we guide you, your team, or your company through the practical application of lean principles and practices, so…
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Beth Carrington
Since 1999, Beth has dedicated her career to coaching organizations through their lean transformations as an independent consultant and instructor at LEI and other global…
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Article
Toyota Trouble: A Dialogue with Jeff Liker (AKA the Coffee Shop Talks)
With the appearance of Toyota's various quality and recall problems, Jeff Liker and I have been meeting in coffee shops in Ann Arbor to discuss…
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Article
Reimagining restaurants after Covid-19
The future has never looked more uncertain for restaurants and cafes. The authors share a set of practical lean tips that can guide these organizations…
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Article
Back to Work
Only a month ago I wrote about going beyond Toyota. And in light of the last month's events, I suppose that must seem prescient. But…
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The Problem of Sustainability
I recently got a call from an old friend who led one of the first lean implementation efforts in healthcare in the mid-1990s. He has…
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What are the key factors within an obeya room?
Dear Gemba Coach: On YouTube and in books there is a lot about A3 storyboards. Did you ever see them used to share people's plans…
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Intentional Respect
"Most organizations fail to intentionally balance the technical tools side with the social side of Lean," writes Mike Orzen. "People say, 'We respect our people.…
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Article
Lean Transformation? Not Buying It
Companies often describe their transformation efforts in terms of an end-state: focusing on targeted results. They see transformation as a noun--a specific target or condition…
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Article
Put Your Strategy on a Diet
"When it comes to goal setting in most organizations, 'Just one more…' seems to be the compulsion," writes Pascal Dennis. Read why less is more…
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Article
How Does Asking Questions Create Change?
Lean is not a sum of processes to acquire and apply which then will make things magically work better. It’s a set of techniques to…
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Article
Adopt or Adapt? When Modifying Lean Makes Sense
One of the key decisions every lean coach, consultant, practitioner, and leader makes is when to fully adopt a particular lean practice or when to…
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Article
Closer Collaboration for a Leaner Planet
Roberto Priolo, editor of Planet Lean, makes the case for lean learning and collaboration across the globe.
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Article
Why the A3 Process Involves More than Filling in Boxes
As she details how to problem-solve using the A3 methodology, a veteran lean coach explains why it's essential to understand that completing an A3 problem-solving…
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Article
Community Communication
Lean thinking and practice is all about tackling problems – little ones, big ones, wicked ones, sticky ones, concrete ones, fuzzy ones. We tackle problems…
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