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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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Management Systems
Connecting Strategy, Operations, and Problem Solving Across Your Organization.
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Faculty
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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Faculty
David Westphal
David Westphal began his extensive career with General Motors in 1990. From 1990 to 2003 David held various positions of increasing responsibility including Manufacturing Engineer,…
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Article
Detroit Auto Show Overshadowed by Dr. Womack's Trashing of Toyota
Jim Womack's most recent e-letter titled "Beyond Toyota"†has sparked a lively and even rancorous debate. "We all, even including Toyota, need to go beyond Toyota,"…
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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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A Postcard — with Leadership Insights — from Nashville
A look back at LEI’s Lean Transformation Summit in 2018 shares a few tips from CEO keynoters on how to successfully lead with lean thinking…
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Article
What Are the Different Types of A3s?
What are the different types of A3s and what are they used for?
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Grit, PDCA, Lean and other four-letter words
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of what author Angela Duckworth calls Grit. She defines grit as a sort of mash-up between passion…
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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
A Deeper Dive into Visual Management at Toyota
"In a previous sketch I introduced Toyota’s approach to visual management, or Floor Management Display Systems (FMDS), including the six elements of creating FMDS," writes…
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Article
Can Lean Know-How Come Home?
When you decide to stop making things, you lose the ability to make things, argues Eric Buehrens: not just the displaced assembly workers who have…
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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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Crossing Silos: Connecting Disconnected Communities at LeanUX NYC
LEI’s John Shook will give a talk, “Lean is About Building an Organization That Learns to Learn" at this year's LeanUX NYC conference, April 15-19.…
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Article
Lean Thinking at 20: A Q&A with Jim Womack and Dan Jones
Twenty years ago Jim Womack and Dan Jones helped launch the lean movement as we know it today with their key book Lean Thinking. Yesterday…
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Article
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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