Article

America’s $4.5 Trillion Healthcare Problem: A Call for Radical Lean Redesign

In this issue of The Design Brief, LEI explores how to resolve the exorbitant cost of America's healthcare system through lean product and process development.

by James Morgan, PhD

Press Release

Gemba-Based Education for Supply Chain and Distribution Professionals

Lean Enterprise Institute and LeanCor, a third-party logistics provider, partner to offer hands-on workshop.

Article

Let Your A3s Lead

Coach Eric Ethington shares how simply getting started with A3s as a means of engaging others in this process is a tactical approach that works.

by Eric Ethington

Article

Build Awareness Through Seeing How Eliminating Waste Reduces Costs

As we grow our people we must continue to add new dimensions of thinking to engage them in their work and to empower them to…

by Ernie Richardson and Tracey Richardson

Article

How do I set up an obeya room?

Dear Gemba Coach: I’d like to set up an obeya room – where should I start? What’s the simplest way to do it?

by Michael Ballé

Article

Distilling Lean Ideas Down to Their Essence

Andrew Quibbell, lean leader and VP of a global enterprise, loves teaching lean concepts. Finding PowerPoint wholly ineffective at communicating lean thinking, he's begun drawing…

by Andrew Quibell

Article

From Chaos to Kaizen: The Visual Way

In another of his visual depictions of the fundamentals of lean, Andrew Quibell illustrates the process of transforming a chaos-plagued organization into one of continuous…

by Andrew Quibell

Article

Are You Making Enough Mistakes?

How comfortable are you making mistakes? Do you make it safe for your team members to make mistakes? Boaz Tamir, Founder of Israel Lean Enterprise…

by Boaz Tamir

Article

It's Not the Crisis; It's How You Respond to It

He probably didn't ask for a problem of quite this magnitude, but like it or not, Akio Toyoda has his crisis. Akio took the reigns…

by John Shook

Article

Should I use an A3 report to kick off a problem-solving effort?

Dear Gemba Coach: Should I use an A3 report to kick off a problem? I encourage my managers to tell me about their problems on…

by Michael Ballé

Article

What's Your Company's Bottleneck?

"A bottleneck is the weak link in the system, the one constraint that prevents us from manufacturing that next toaster or frothing that next latte…

by Brent Wahba

Article

Foolish Consistency or Meaningful Standard Work?

How do organizations develop system-wide standard work and also create the conditions for local problem solving within departments? Dr. Grant Greenberg of University of Michigan…

by Grant Greenberg

Article

Advice from the Gemba: Keeping Senior Leadership Committed

The cost savings of lean are not always apparent in the short term. If your senior leadership was skeptical going into the transformation, this situation…

by Ken Eakin and Chris Vogel

Article

A Sensei in One's Own Land

In his first piece for The Lean Post, John Shook addresses the question of if, when, and how you and your organization should work with…

by John Shook

Article

Getting Religious About Problem Solving

Have you ever heard of a lean transformation guided by scriptures? The people at LifeWayChristian Resources' distribution center in Tennessee have! Whenever possible, they use…

by Lean Leaper

Article

Respect the Customer By Respecting Your Worker

Lean provides us with a different approach to this vicious cycle. Build a management system in your company that allows employees to make the best…

by Mark Reich

Article

How One Company is Using Lean Fundamentals When Facing Disruption

Companies that have been built using lean principles are turning to these core ideals when confronting the unique challenges caused by today’s pandemic. Here's how…

by Michael Ballé

Article

Effective Supervision 101

One of the biggest challenges for lean thinkers is translating lean thinking into lean doing, writes Stan Shaw. One of the best ways of making…

Article

Becoming Horizontal in a Vertical World

One of my favorite value-stream walks is with the senior managers of several organizations who share and jointly manage a value-creating process that stretches all…

by James (Jim) Womack, PhD

Article

Is promising that lean will make work more meaningful disrespectful to people?

Dear Gemba Coach: Can lean really make work more meaningful for everybody? Isn’t this overpromising to workers and disrespectful to them because management really can't…

by Michael Ballé