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You Can’t Manage a Secret
How did the obeya management system come to be at Toyota? How has it been refined since its beginning as…
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Do andons apply to software development?
Dear Gemba Coach: I work in software development, and I really don’t see how andon applies – what am I…
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Experiential Change: Using PDCA to craft a new department structure
"In January 2016 the Human Resources department at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) was restructured into a High-Impact…
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Thinking About Thinking
Don't believe everything you think. Practice scientific thinking and test your assumptions, because every step is an experiment!
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Advice from the Gemba: The Most Frustrating Types of Waste (and How to Eliminate Them!)
If you've ever lost sleep over a particularly frustrating source of waste in your organization, you're not alone. Some forms…
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Mindfulness: A Practice, a State of Being, an Essential!
Many of us are familiar with the term "mindfulness," especially in the context of being aware of our surroundings. But…
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What the Books Don’t Tell: Explaining the Financial Benefits of Lean
It's a curious fact that very few books about lean address the topic of finance. Questions about lean's financial benefits…
Read article Does a Lean Company Need Explicit or Implicit Leadership?
Dear Gemba Coach: Explicit leadership or implicit leadership? Does an explicit style sustain a lean organization?
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Thrustmaster Comes Around
The following Lean Enterprise Institute case study reveals how Thrustmaster of Texas successfully adopted lean thinking and practices to make…
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Why We’re Thankful For Lean
Thanksgiving is a time of year when Americans take a day to step back and appreciate everything they have to…
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A Deeper Dive into Visual Management at Toyota
"In a previous sketch I introduced Toyota’s approach to visual management, or Floor Management Display Systems (FMDS), including the six…
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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…
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