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Why Lean Isn't Successful in Healthcare

How often do you choose to improve processes that may not provide any financial benefit whatsoever? Read why lean practitioner Janice Brathwaite thinks we can…

by Janice Brathwaite

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Boatloads of Muda

Ken Eakin saw his fair share of waste during his 13 years in the ocean-shipping industry, especially in the transportation process. Now a lean coach,…

by Ken Eakin

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No Change is Easy: The Starbucks Siren Steps into Dunkin Donuts’ World of Orange and Pink

Lean is about a willingness to experiment and if necessary, change our approach to our work and our daily routine. Lisa Adams, a lean coach…

by Lisa Adams

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CI Sustainment: A Hiding Place for Complexity

"How many times has your continuous improvement solution wound up being more complex than the original problem?" muses Lynn Kelley. In her first piece for…

by Lynn Kelley

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JoePa and Other Biases to Avoid

A recent viewing of the biographical film Paterno led LEI Senior Coach Mark Reich to reflect on the way many of us let biases filter…

by Mark Reich

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Show Me the Money!

In his latest piece for the Post, Michael Ballé writes, "If we don’t get better at showing explicitly where the gains of lean thinking and…

by Michael Ballé

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How We Improved Our Tiered Daily Huddles

At Cleveland Clinic, where he leads a continuous improvement team, Nate Hurle and others have discovered ways to build on success with their tiered daily…

Article

Closer Collaboration for a Leaner Planet

Roberto Priolo, editor of Planet Lean, makes the case for lean learning and collaboration across the globe.

by Roberto Priolo

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Cowabunga! Implementing Lean at a Surfing School

Lean is difficult for many companies to grasp at first, often due to the cultural shift. If the organization's people are used to a more…

by Sammy Obara

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Glad That I Asked You

About 400 of you responded with excellent suggestions for the final "Learning Session" for the upcoming LEI Lean Transformation Summit. As you will recall, every…

by John Shook

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How do you protect jobs while reducing lines and shifts?

Dear Gemba Coach: How do you protect jobs while reducing lines and shifts?

by Michael Ballé

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How Do I Change the Culture?

Dear Gemba Coach: I come from a company quite advanced in lean and I’ve joined a new firm as technical director. I’d like to apply lean…

by Michael Ballé

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What's different about implementing lean in a low-volume, high-variety environment?

Dear Gemba Coach: I manage a plant that makes highly engineered, low-volume products. What do I have to do differently from the high-volume guys to…

by Michael Ballé

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Why don't people learn from experience?

Dear Gemba Coach: On the gemba, we have many problems to manage every day. People don’t seem to learn from their experience. Is there any…

by Michael Ballé

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Can lean go wrong?

Dear Gemba Coach: Can lean go wrong? Can the ideas be misused and can the outcome be bad for the company? Is there any way…

by Michael Ballé

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How important is it to consider differences in roles between our current project manager and a chief engineer?

Dear Gemba Coach: Management wants us to start lean in product development, but refuses to consider the difference in roles between our current project manager…

by Michael Ballé

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How do I practice lean when I don't feel a strong attachment to my knowledge worker team?

Dear Gemba Coach: How do I practice lean consistently when I don't feel a strong attachment to my team? We do "knowledge work" and are…

by Michael Ballé

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How can we reconcile the lean principle of respect for people with our disrespectful atmosphere?

Dear Gemba Coach: My company's lean program stigmatizes competent people as “concrete heads” for disagreeing with the lean coaches, even when the coaches' prescriptions make…

by Michael Ballé

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How can I train technical experts who know more about the work than I do?

Dear Gemba Coach: I understand I have to train people, but I work in a very technical area and they all know far more about…

by Michael Ballé

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PDCA Is Really CA-PDCA -- and It’s the CA that Makes the PD Work

Why Grasping the Actual Conditions (firsthand as an automatic practice) at the beginning, during, and after a problem-solving effort is the most important part of…

by David Verble