Article

What's your definition of lean?

Dear Gemba Coach: My company is adopting lean, which has so many definitions that I find it confusing. What's your definition and why can’t all…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Why We Believe We Have All the Bricks to Build Our Future

In this wide-ranging article, lead author Catherine Chabiron and her fellow Lean Sensei Women propose a number of ways to tackle the new emerging challenges…

by Lean Sensei Women

Article

Cadence

What do the numbers 1/16, 4/04, 5/03, 5/30, 8/22, 10/23 and 12/20 have in common? They are the dates (day/month) that I sent out my…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD

Article

My boss has asked me to take on the sensei role for the company. What does that mean?

Dear Gemba Coach: How do I become a sensei? My boss has asked me to act in the sensei role for the company but I’m…

by Michael Ballé

Article

How Lean Thinking and Practices Can Help You Prepare for and Rebound from a Crisis

As the world emerges from the depths of the pandemic, the Lean Sensei Women share how lean can help you refocus from meeting the challenges…

by Lean Sensei Women

Workbooks

Seeing the Whole Value Stream

For the tens of thousands of users of value-stream mapping at the facility level, Seeing the Whole Value Stream provides the logical next step, extending…

by David Brunt, James (Jim) Womack, PhD, Dan Jones and Matthew Lovejoy

Podcast

Handling the Heat of the Kitchen: A WLEI Podcast

Hear how LEI coaches helped a flagship restaurant's kitchen staff find and eliminate waste in their work processes, which led to better performance outcomes in…

by John Cotter and Matthew Savas

Download

birth-of-lean-ch2

Case Study

Standardized Work Hangs Ten with San Diego’s Surfing Culture -- Meeting the Challenges of Leadership, Culture, and Resistance

Instead of wiping out with a Southern California surfing school, the lean management principle of standardized had a positive impact, helping it boost surfing time…

by Doug Bartholomew

Podcast

Designing the Future: A WLEI Podcast with Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe and former COO Jim Morgan

LEI explores the early days and product development strategies of electrical-vehicle startup Rivian.

by Josh Howell, James Morgan, PhD, Matthew Savas and RJ Scaringe

Article

In your opinion, is lean thinking a common sense way of working or is it counterintuitive? What makes you think that?

Here are all the submissions to the community sound off question: "In your opinion, is lean thinking a common sense way of working or is…

by Lean Enterprise Institute

Article

Ask Art: Why Should I Convert to a Pull System?

Deliver more value to your customers by converting your business to a pull system and connecting demand directly to your production system, advises Art Byrne.

by Art Byrne

Article

Ask Art: Why Do I Need to Switch From Batch to Flow?

Moving from batch to flow reveals the waste in your processes and simplifies your work at a systems level, says Art Byrne. It creates simplicity,…

by Art Byrne

Case Study

“Pulling” Lean Through a Hospital

It's not unusual for North American hospitals to try lean for processes where patient flow most impacts costs or revenue. These efforts, if successful, often…

by George Taninecz

Article

How Working In Oncology Has Reframed Failure and Success

Doctor Carlos "Fred" Pinto and his colleagues at IOV in Brazil have learned that resilience emerges when applying lean thinking consistently to support better care…

by Carlos Frederico Pinto

Article

Why does one-piece-flow matter?

Dear Gemba Coach: Recently, during a plant visit, our sensei made a big fuss because there were three parts between two operators and he insisted…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Ask Art: Why Do Most Companies Think Of Lean as Just a Cost Reduction Program?

We shouldn’t be surprised at all that most companies approach lean as a cost reduction program, when it really is better understood as a time-based…

by Art Byrne

Article

The Lean Manager (Chapter 1)

The Lean ManagerChapter OneCUSTOMERS FIRST“He’s closing the plant!”Closing the plant meant losing his job. Losing his job meant losing Malancourt. Losing Malancourt didn’t bear thinking…

by Freddy Ballé and Michael Ballé

Article

Why aren’t the laws of lean articulated?

Dear Gemba Coach: Aren’t there laws of lean, just as there are laws of physics? And why aren’t these clearly articulated yet?

by Michael Ballé

Article

Front-Load Your Design Process By Using Set-Based Design

Jeffrey Liker highlights the benefits of set-based design in this in-depth reflection of his time working in product development at Toyota.

by Jeffrey Liker