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What? My Pull System Is Supposed to Fail?

Dear Gemba Coach: We’ve given up on installing a pull system – every time we try, our on time delivery rate plummets, and we can’t…

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Ask Art: At What Pace Should A Lean Turnaround Be Implemented?”

Changing from a traditional batch, make-the-month culture to a lean value driven culture takes a lot of time and effort, says Art Byrne. The faster…

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Ask Art: Why Are the Four Lean Fundamentals So Important for Making a Conversion to Lean?

A review of the core lean elements reveals how — and why — lean management leads to higher enterprise performance.

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Ask Art: What Are the Most Important Management Changes Needed to Implement A Lean Turnaround?

Lean thinking requires a totally different mindset than traditional management, argues lean veteran Art Byrne. This is probably the most significant reason that companies fail…

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Advice from the Gemba: TPS Mythbusting

Despite its fundamental role in a lean transformation, the Toyota Production System is not an easy thing for many to grasp. In this special installment…

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What Exactly Is - or Isn't - a Lean System?

Dear Gemba Coach: I’m confused as to what a “lean system” is or should be. Could you clarify?

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Ask Art: What's Wrong with Organizing By Function?

While you might be able to survive and be profitable using a traditional functional structure the fact is that you will be leaving a lot…

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Creating an awareness of takt time in areas of a production process where products cannot be delivered and taken away at the frequency of takt…

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Method vs. Tool

Dear Gemba Coach: I think that TPM, JIT, SMED, Heijunka are methods and the 5S, VSM Kaizen are tools.  Perhaps we could use the expression…

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How Using Kanban Builds Trust

Kanban functions as a trust machine because everyone using it must understand what they have to do and why, says Michael Balle: "Our purpose here…

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Why Lean Fails in Job Shops... and What to Do to Succeed

Like many job shop owners, LEI faculty member Greg Lane struggled with implementing lean principles early on. The experiences and books he had been exposed…

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Can lean management help with the start of production?

Dear Gemba Coach: Can lean management help with the start of production?

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Why do you lean experts still revere the Toyota Production System? Hasn't any one come up with something better?

Dear Gemba Coach,Since Toyota formulated TPS 50 years ago, many other companies have come up with their own business systems ñ I have been taught…

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Working on the Management

Effective daily management is still hard to achieve for most organizations, says Jim Womack. But until line managers start tackling problems first hand as they…

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Standards at workstations

Dear Gemba Coach: Our corporate production system asks us to post standard work at workstations, but we feel that the paperwork clutters the stations and operators…

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How is lean different from Taylorism?

In a special column, Michael Ballé breaks from his standard practice of answering readers’ questions to weigh in on the controversy comparing lean management to…

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I’ve been improving process efficiency for years with value-stream mapping, why did you write that it is misleading?

Dear Gemba Coach: In your previous column you stated that value-stream mapping can be misleading. I’ve been using VSM for years to improve process efficiency…

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Ask Art: How Useful is Six Sigma and the Black Belts and Green Belts that Come with It?

Several specific examples demonstrate why lean continuous improvement practices are usually superior to six sigma for solving problems.

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Once Again, Here's Why JIT Matters

Jeffrey Liker argues that recent media snipes fail to understand the crucial role JIT plays in a complete #lean system in surfacing problems & pressuring…

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The Cascade of Hoshin

A recent gemba walk at a Toyota plant reveals how the company operationalizes its hoshin plan — in this case, to win the auto industry's…

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