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How Do I Convince People to Practice Lean?
Dear Gemba Coach: I have previous lean experience, and have now joined a large bureaucratic organization. I’m trying to apply the…
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How NUMMI Changed Its Culture
I received a lot of questions on-line and off about last week’s column on the pending closing of NUMMI. One…
Read article Kaizen is Fun? Really?
Dear Gemba Coach: I have been learning lean for three years now. My question to you: How is Kaizen 'fun'? Doing…
Read article How Can I Address the Conflict that Lean Creates?
Dear Gemba Coach, I have just finished reading The Lean Manager, and I was very taken by the chapter on…
Read article Managing Suppliers
Dear Gemba Coach: We've done a lot of kaizen work in production and have something of a pull system running. We've…
Read article Was NUMMI a Success?
By now you know that Toyota made its much-anticipated decision to close NUMMI. Many of my friends are saddened by…
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Herman Miller’s Experiment in Excellence
With initial support from the Toyota Supplier Support Center, Herman Miller cultivates experimental thinkers who make process improvements every day.…
View case study Signs of Progress
Dear Gemba Coach: We've been doing lean for several years now, and the program has had its ups and downs.…
Read article In Search of Value Stream Architects
Recently I've been spending most of my gemba time walking through value-creating processes in organizations far away from manufacturing. And…
Read article How Do We Reduce Costs with Lean?
Dear Gemba Coach: I have been asked to reduce the cost of a product by a significant amount. I believe…
Read article How Much Control Do I Need (and Need to Give Up) to Lead?
Dear Gemba Coach: I am interested in setting up a team for implementing lean. So far I have been trying…
Read article A3 Example from “Making Hospitals Work”
This is an example high-level planning A3 from the fictitious hospital in the book Making Hospitals Work. Click on the "read…
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