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Are lean principles universal?
Dear Gemba Coach: Can we really consider Lean principles as Universal? I am currently working on a case study about…
Read article Top athletes and singers have coaches. Should you?
Surgeon Atul Gawande explains why he got a coach and why everyone’s work would benefit from having one.
Read article How to Change a Culture: Lessons From NUMMI
The editors of MIT Sloan Management Review honored LEI CEO John Shook with the 2011 Beckhard Memorial Award for the…
Read article Should we have our own TPS “house”?
Dear Gemba Coach: My management wants to build our own version of the TPS (Toyota Production System) house in order…
Read article Lean Business-IT Integration, Part One: Who Wants to Go Talk to IT About This One?
In this, the first of a five part series, LEI faculty member Steve Bell begins with the importance of lean…
Read article Why Create Poka-yokes—and Why Disconnect Them?
I’m a manufacturing engineer and since I have started participating in kaizen workshops, I have noticed that production supervisors tend…
Read article The Lean IT Challenge
View slides from the Lean IT workshop showing the roles IT can play in a successful lean transformation.
Read article What Is Information Waste?
Excess information — in our inboxes, hard drives, shared drives, intranet sites, data warehouses, etc., — is waste. This unnecessary…
Read article How Can Lean Take Root in a Crappy Culture?
Dear Gemba Coach: I've done a lot of working with lean, and recently started my first coaching/consulting gig. And while…
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Takt Time Thinking for a Low-Volume High-Mix Company
Dear Gemba Coach: Our company produces custom products that cannot be easily forecast in terms of when they will be…
Read article Why Is Failure Key to Lean Success?
Dear Gemba Coach: I am a LSS black belt working with a sensei to improve our performance. We conduct many…
Read article PDCA at the Plate
We know that "lean" is all about plan-do-check-act (PDCA). The challenge we all face in our everyday work is to…
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