1988 was a significant year in the history of modern progressive management. It was the start of “The Great Divergence,” wherein Toyota’s Production System (TPS) and Kaizen were reformulated into a Western interpretation called “Lean.” This divergence led to “The Great Confusion” — Is Lean the Same as TPS? — that remains with us today, […]

Chihiro Nakao not liking what he sees on the genba. The first generation of Shingijutsu consultants, led by Yoshiki Iwata (d. 2001) and Chihiro Nakao are widely known for their expertise in kaizen consulting and helping organizations create TPS-like management systems since 1987. They are also known as “insultants” for their direct form of communication […]

Most of the books about Lean management, Toyota Production System, and the Toyota Way are reportage: “writing intended to give an account of observed or documented events.” They tell the story of story of a company or persons who did something notable. Reportage is useful in three ways: Deliver information clearly, though not always concisely […]

Respect for People is one of the most overlooked principles of Lean.  Respect for people means developing employees’ latent skills in both on the job and off the job training. It is easy to invest money in new technology, software, or equipment. It takes time, effort, and planning to invest in employee skills development. Without […]

Aubrey Clayton’s book, Bernoulli’s Fallacy, covers the same ground as Jaynes’s Probability Theory: The Logic of Science, for a broader audience. It is also an easier read, at 347 pages versus 727. In addition, the author also discusses the socio-political context of mathematical statistics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to his […]

One of the things that makes life at work more difficult than it should be is the lack of connection between departments, people, and processes. Legendary are the disputes between operations and sales, quality and purchasing, and design and marketing, to name a few prominent examples. Severed connections such as these are rampant, especially in […]

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on […]

Thanks, as always, to Ryan McCormack for this. He always shares so much good reading, listening, and viewing here! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. News, articles, books, podcasts, and videos about how to make the workplace better. Operational Excellence, Improvement, and Innovation Seeking Perfection is Back Setting “zero defect” targets for […]

In the world of business and project management, the concepts of continuous improvement and process improvement are often used interchangeably. However, there are subtle, yet significant, differences between the two concepts that can greatly impact the success of an organization. Understanding these distinctions is crucial for implementing effective strategies to achieve dramatic improvements that drive […]

I recently watched a video on our KaiNexus YouTube channel with our co-founder and CEO, Greg Jacobson, and our Chief Revenue Officer, Jeff Roussel. I loved it so much that I wanted to share it here with some highlights and thoughts. You can also watch “Shorts” video clips via this playlist and share them with […]

Transform Your Leadership: Break the Telling Habit® Have you ever had a team member look at you with frustration when you share your great ideas and suggestions with them? Or, have you ever felt like—with all the things you need to solve and do—you don’t have time to ask questions? Like you’re stuck putting out […]

We’ve all heard the phrase “what gets measured gets done” but I also believe “what gets rewarded gets done even quicker.” Understanding how employee rewards and recognition impacts productivity, performance, and employee engagement has been the subject of many studies and experiments, ergo, the salient connection between human behavior and appreciation needs no introduction. We […]

I often write and speak about how warning signs (or cautions) are not effective at preventing mistakes, errors, and problems. See this recent post about this: Signs Are Not Mistake-Proofing: Hospital Hallways Edition. And to prove that I’ve been writing about this for a long time, here’s a post from 2007: Signs are Not Error […]

In this post I will look at how the tractor maker Fendt handles variability in its plant in Marktoberdorf, Germany. In my view, Fendt is one of the benchmark plants in the world in handling variability. In my previous post I looked at reasons why you may (or may not) leave one part empty on […]

Ah, it’s another year of the Academy Awards. And that means, not surprisingly, another year with news articles that don’t show much understanding of performance measures over time. You might have read a very similar post in the past… because I’ve written very similar posts (like this one updated in 2021), and I wrote about […]

Here is something that I imagine could happen in the not-too-distant future… Artificial intelligence systems installed by large companies have eliminated huge numbers of jobs. This, in turn, has reduced the purchasing power of consumers resulting in year-over-year reductions in sales and profitability for the foreseeable future. Geist Products is one such company. It is […]

If you have been working for the last 30 or more years, or if you are familiar with management history, you are no doubt aware of the many management fads that have come and gone since the 1930s. These include: Human Relations Management by Objectives Matrix Management Business Process Reengineering Theory Z Empowerment Best Practices […]

By Pascal Dennis (bio) Enterprise, in all its glorious variety, cacophony & unpredictability begins and ends with value. We seek to create products, services, experiences…that elevates our fellow human beings, that make their lives easier or more enjoyable, that reduce hassle and free up their time & energy. Otherwise, why bother? We are human to […]

Larry Culp, CEO of GE, their first outside CEO in 125 years has been leading their transformation using a Lean mindset. Many Lean practitioners and business leaders have been following GE’s performance. Recently Larry released the annual report and I really appreciate the lessons I found within. You can read the full report here. 1.     […]

First off, we’re in that weird time when time zone offsets between Europe and the Americas are out of whack. I’ve updated this Thursday’s event to reflect that: 21 March, online, 15:00 GMT, 16:00 CET, 11am EDT:Experience/practice session: Outside-in Strategy Readiness Assessment While we’re looking at free events, April’s webinar features a special guest, Karl […]

Please read “Ohno’s Theory of Nonproductivity” for context before continuing. Below is a recent DM conversation that you may find interesting, followed by some insights into the Theorem of Least Work and Artificial Intelligence. Mr. D: “I made a presentation to executives a few weeks back, It was a full day meeting and I closing […]

Earlier today, during the Atlantic 10 Conference men’s basketball championship game between Duquesne and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), celebratory confetti briefly fell with 17:54 left in the second half. CBS play-by-play announcer Kevin Harlan said, “Oh my gosh, they’ve got confetti falling right now. Confetti is falling on the floor. They’re gonna have to stop […]

Is problem-solving a technical skill? I’ve heard many people say things like “I’m an engineer, so already a good problem solver” or “I’m a doctor, what we do is solve problems.” To be certain, I’ve said that about myself. It’s just not an accurate statement. Engineers (to pick on my own kind) are not inherently […]

Here is a set of webpages (much like linked blog posts) that Martin Fowler wrote.  Looks like in 2005. https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/newMethodology.html Very good stuff. Most of it still applies.   Martin Fowler was one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto (and the Agile Principles).  agilemanifesto.org For more info on Martin Fowler see this Wikipedia article: […]

Lean Six Sigma has emerged as a powerful methodology to enhance efficiency, reduce waste, and drive continuous improvement within organizations. One of the key elements that make Lean Six Sigma so effective is the wide array of tools and techniques it offers to identify problems, analyze data, and implement solutions. In this blog post, we’ll […]

This year, 2024, is my 30-year anniversary of being seriously involved with progressive management, both Toyota Production System and Lean management. Throughout that time I have been both a practitioner and an educator — a practitioner in manufacturing, supply chain management, and higher education, and an educator, both as a manager and as a professor. […]

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on […]

We are fortunate enough to get to spend a lot of time chatting with customers and other organizations that are interested in continuous improvement about how they approach the need for constant positive change. Many techniques that are used in the Lean and Six Sigma management approaches come up during these conversations, but one that […]

The Lean community is a small special interest group, an aspirational community, bonded by some key features: Dissatisfaction with the current state Alliance with business pragmatism Belief in the need to continuously improve processes and systems Expression of authenticity Expression of personal identity The first three items reflect the mind, the last two reflect the […]

  In a recent episode of the People Solve Problems podcast, Jamie Flinchbaugh sits down with Sarah Tilkens, Senior Manager of OpEx for GE Healthcare as well as the CEO & Founder of The KPI Lab, to discuss the art and science of problem-solving within organizations. Sarah shares her journey from an early interest in […]

As part of TED’s ‘How to be a Better Human’ series, two researchers, Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, developed an idea called ‘self-determination theory’. Self-determination theory essentially argued that people are motivated when they can determine for themselves what to work on and how to work on it. Below, I’ll outline the three main drivers […]

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #500 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is me, your usual host Mark Graban. Today, I’m mixing up the format with a solo episode that celebrates 500 episodes over almost 18 years. I’ll share some of the origin story and history of […]

Recently I have been thinking about why kata has experienced so much greater success than genba kaizen. After all, the continuous practice of kaizen is what led to the creation of TPS and the Toyota Way in just a few decades. Yet kaizen never really caught on among the organizations that pursued Lean. It should […]

Normally, assembly lines are run with a product in every slot of the line. However, for various reasons, sometimes you may have an empty spot. Depending on your assembly line, you may even play with the general distance between products on the line. The latter is called variable takt, or VarioTakt. In this post I […]