Article

How a Lean Quoting Process Helps You Capture High-Value Opportunities, Part 3

Setting up a Daily Opportunity Review Board helps your company strategically respond to high-value customer inquiries.

Article

Using Lean Thinking to Create an “Emergency Management System”

The Lynn Community Health Center (LCHC) demonstrates how one organization with scarce resources can respond to a problem as daunting as a global pandemic using…

by Alice Lee

Article

Standardize Locally

A few weeks ago, during a day-long meeting with an executive management team, the topic of standardized work came up … again. It’s been popping up in…

by Josh Howell

Article

Why You Should Link Hoshin Kanri with A3 Problem-Solving

With A3 tightly linked to hoshin, an organization will not only solve problems but also will have the opportunity to innovate new ways of operating…

by Mark Reich

Article

Are You Training People to Think or to Follow a Checklist?

"Without attention to why continuous improvement is important, the purpose behind [PDCA], when tools should be used, and when to apply ideas," Erin Urban writes,…

by Erin Urban

Article

What Does "Waste" in Government Processes Mean Anyway?

"It is commonplace in the US Federal Government to see placards and signs admonishing us to be on guard for instances of 'Fraud, Waste, and…

by William Journigan and James Phillips Jr.

Article

Beyond Lean: Towards Compression Thinking

"Lean thinkers make things better by framing issues as Problems," writes Doc Hall. "Yet today our great challenges transcend corporate Problems. The core Problems confronting…

by Robert W. (Doc) Hall

Article

Value Stream Management

As we emerge from the recession and look ahead old ways of thinking and action will not be enough to meet two big challenges ahead.…

by Dan Jones

Article

What happens after the lean coach leaves?

As a lean coach, after you move to a new management assignment, finish a training course, or run several kaizen events, can the team you…

by Dan Jones

Article

How the Toyota Way and Toyota Kata Fit Together

The author of The Toyota Way explains where Toyota Kata fits with Toyota’s broader management principles — and how each enhances the other to help…

by Jeffrey Liker

Article

What is Your Line of Sight?

Coach Tracey Richardson explains why having a line of sight aligns you with the organizations purpose, and helps you determine how to define your own…

by Tracey Richardson

Article

Lean Leadership Lesson: First Thing, Grasp the Situation; Last Thing, Grasp the Situation

In this appendix to his eletter on lean leadership, LEI CEO Joh Shook explains how leading in a lean management company requires a radically different…

Article

Small Batch: Hand-Picked Articles form the Global Lean Community (Vol. 2)

Our picks for the best high-impact learning stories and columns from Planet Lean.

by Lean Leaper

Article

Small Chart, Big Impact: How a Simple Spaghetti Chart Led to Huge Wins at Thrustmaster of Texas

Sometimes the simplest lean concepts can make all the difference in ensuring a successful transformation. Marine-propulsion manufacturer Thrustmaster of Texas found this out after creating…

by Lean Leaper

Article

Understanding the 4S Help Chain, Part 2: Lessons from NUMMI on How to Adapt the Model to Product Development

How do you create an andon signal for your product and process development process? Matt Zayko, a technical coach for LEI's Lean Product and Process…

by Matt Zayko

Article

How to Start the A3 Problem-Solving Process

Why the best, most productive way to “start an A3” is by recognizing that the A3 problem-solving methodology is a “slow-thinking” process.

by David Verble

Article

A Lean Management System Starts with Senior Leaders

"From events, projects, and A3s to focusing on a lean management system, we’re discovering a new way to run and lead our healthcare organizations, or…

by Steven Leuschel

Article

A Consciousness of Reality

There are countless cases of lean thinking being applied masterfully with the word lean (or the Toyota Production System) nowhere in sight, writes John Shook,…

by John Shook

Article

Putting Customers First

The cofounders of a successful startup share how lean thinking and practices helped ensure they kept their focus on the customer from startup to scaleup.

by Michael Ballé and Nicolas Chartier

Article

How Can Lean Help Manage the Costs and Complications of Satisfying Customers During Rapid Growth?

An entrepreneur shares why and how lean management helps startups innovate and grow.

by Michael Ballé and Nicolas Chartier