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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…
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LEI's indicator that can't lie: Doing the math
Jim elaborates on the idea of using inventory turns as a measure of lean transformation
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Be a Better Coach; Learn to “Force” Reflection Part 2: Forcing Managers and Execs to Reflect
How to hold senior-level leaders accountable for expected behaviors and practices, such as the PDCA process' "check/reflect" phase.
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Board Responsibilities and the Lean Management System
"A board needs to go far beyond checking performance measurements and actually hold senior leaders accountable for management systems and behaviors," writes Steve Leuschel. "As…
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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…
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Does a lean transformation boost a company's stock price?
Dear Gemba Coach: You’ve worked with a lot of different companies in the public and private sectors. How have the stock prices of the public…
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Book Value: Jim Womack on Ford Methods and Ford Shops
Jim Womack, author of Lean Thinking and founder of The Lean Enterprise Institute, reflects on one of the books that greatly influenced his thinking.
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Thinking About the Why of the What of Problem-Solving
When we talk about problem-solving, what we’re really talking about here is creating adaptive capacity, the deep capability of an organization to tackle anything that…
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Any advice for a team with a new boss who doesn’t know lean but wants us to switch to agile instead?
Dear Gemba Coach: We have a new boss who doesn’t know lean and is asking our lean team to switch to “agile” instead. Any advice?
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Policy Deployment: aka Strategy Alignment, aka Hoshin Kanri (Appendix 2 to the Eletter “Lead from the Front, Lead from Behind”)
As a way of illustrating the most common misconception about hoshin kanri, namely, that it’s a top-down deployment process, LEI CEO John Shook explains in…
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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…
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Who Owns Your A3? (Part Two)
In this second of two columns, Mark Reich explains why people must own their A3 reports as a means of developing their ability to properly…
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Is agile project management simply lean thinking applied to software development?
Dear Gemba Coach: You seem to distinguish between agile and lean, but to my understanding, agile is simply lean thinking applied to software development. Am…
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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 book if they will do…
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Why do lean management experts differ on how to apply lean principles?
Dear Gemba Coach: I’ve worked with several managers who worked at Toyota or Toyota suppliers who were considered experts in the company’s management and production…
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The Digital Storm and the End of Old You with CI&T
A virtual lean learning experience featuring CI&T.
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Four Types of Problems (Introduction)
An excerpt from Four Types of Problems IntroductionThe four types of problems are:Type 1: Troubleshooting: Reactive problem solving that hinges upon quick response and dealing with immediate…
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