This is the back story to the book The Workmanship of Leaders. This book follows fast on heels of A Changed Perspective: An Essential Guide for Emerging Leaders. I wrote A Changed Perspective from mid-November to mid-December 2022, and it was published in early January 2023. As I normally do when I finish a book, […]

Changeovers are required to ensure that we can satisfy the different needs of a customer. Reducing the time to do a changeover holds the key to how quickly we can respond to a customer’s needs. Also, quick changeover means less downtime, which translates to more efficiency, productivity, and parts! How is a quick changeover achieved? […]

Over the course of 20-plus years, top administrators made a grievous and potentially fatal error: They allowed the price of education (tuition, board, meal plans, and fees) to exceed its value. The same has happened in some European countries — notably, Great Britain. In public higher education, hundreds of millions of dollars in funding was […]

Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a design, a manufacturing process or assembly process, or a final product or service. “Failure modes” means the ways, or modes, in which something might fail. Failures are any errors or defects, especially ones that affect the customer and […]

FEATURE – At a recent Lean Day, our editor was reminded of the immense potential of Lean Thinking applied to government. After a few sleepy years, is lean in the public administration having a comeback? Words: Roberto Priolo, Editor, Planet Lean When I first ventured into the lean world, now over a decade ago, I […]

Implementing a quality improvement strategy is a proactive way for organizations to gain an edge in a highly competitive landscape, especially during an uncertain economy.  Most organizations begin the transformation by taking an unflinching look at operations and identifying which processes are in the most urgent need of improvement. From there, they set to the […]

One-piece flow is strongly connected to lean manufacturing. It moves each product to the next stage as soon as it is completed at the previous stage in the value stream. This brings lots of benefits. While I have written about one-piece flow before, in this post I would like to go into detail on the […]

The Gallup 12 Engagement Hierarchy is a framework created by the Gallup Organization to help organizations understand and improve employee engagement. According to Gallup, employee engagement is “the extent to which employees feel passionate about their jobs, are committed to the organization, and are willing to put in discretionary effort to help the organization achieve […]

Reposted from 2014… It’s Valentine’s Day. I’ll be on a flight home from Boston later, hoping to see my wife at least a little bit on this day. Anyway, we never go out to dinner on Valentine’s Day proper — our attempt to help “level load” the restaurants (and we get plenty of chances to […]

Getting Started With Tube and Joint Systems Continuous changes in consumer demand require manufacturers to stay on their toes and be adaptable. If you’re working in antiquated workspaces or using outdated equipment, you may be inhibiting your company’s ability to evolve with the world around it. Modular structures built using Geolean’s tube and joint systems […]

This was a big mistake on the biggest stage for the biggest American sports league. I wouldn’t say it ruined the game, but it was, at minimum, a distraction that the announcers mentioned many times. Between the Super Bowl turf itself and the huge painted logos, this seemed to create safety issues for the players […]

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to […]

This (the link below) is an article, written I think mainly by Ken Schwaber (and also by Jeff Sutherland). I have been told that many people contributed to the experiments and thoughts implied by the discussion in the paper.  This experimental development of Scrum has been stated by Sutherland and Schwaber in several (all?) of […]

Over the course of 20-plus years, top administrators made a grievous and potentially fatal error: They allowed the price of education (tuition, board, meal plans, and fees) to exceed its value. The same has happened in some European countries — notably, Great Britain. In public higher education, hundreds of millions of dollars in funding was […]

LinkedIn Learning is an online platform that offers courses and tutorials on various topics, including business, technology, creative arts, and more. The platform was created to help individuals and organizations upskill and reskill. It has become increasingly popular as more people seek to improve their knowledge and careers. In this article, we’ll take a closer […]

Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. Insights about improvement, innovation, and leadership… Operational Excellence, Improvement, and Innovation Don’t be a tool(head). Many improvement professionals find themselves transitioning from being an individual […]

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 […]

This *FREE* interactive series of seminars first ran in the Fall of 2022, and it is back due to popular demand! This unique series of seminars will be a great learning experience. Don’t miss it! The *FREE* Spring 2023 series will kick off on Friday, 10 March 2023 and continue each Friday through 28 April. […]

Productivity is a crucial aspect of business success and refers to the output produced per unit of input. Simply, it measures how effectively you utilize your time, resources, and skills to achieve your goals. In this post, we’ll explore the concept of productivity and how it works in detail. I. Introduction Definition of productivity Importance […]

What is Poka-Yoke? Poka-yoke (poh-kah yoh-keh) is a Japanese term that means “mistake-proofing” or more literally — avoiding (yokeru) inadvertent errors (poka).  What’s more, it’s one of the most fundamental tools of lean six sigma, and one of several lean manufacturing tools, that is designed to help organizations eliminate waste, streamline processes, and increase efficiency. […]

Exploring the pros and cons of Atarimae, Waigay, Kodawari, Kansya and more. The 10 Japanese words we learned from consulting to Toyota group: Atarimae Waigaya Kodawari Kan Kotsu Hansei Monozukuri Kansya Kaikaiku Kamishibai Jikoutei kan ketsu and more importantly we’ll explain how they can help you. We’ll get to the 10 Japanese words shortly, but […]

This article explores organisational structures and roles, on the understanding that most roles are structured on a hierarchical basis – and can be universally defined using the acronym RASCI: Responsible – “operational team-leader/manager” role. Accountable – “top-level/executive/buck-stops here” role. Supporting – “team-member/participant/supplier” role. Consulted – “subject-matter expert/arbiter/customer” role. Informed – “stakeholder/regulator/key-contact” role. Leadership & Management […]

Manufacturers of all kinds seek to achieve continuous quality improvement because it ensures the consistency of products delivered to customers and protects against the competition. It also paves the path to compliance with industry-specific standards. This is crucial in the automotive sector because defective vehicle parts may lead to expensive recalls or worse accidents that […]

“Value is only valuable if someone values your value.” As business agility expert Nigel Thurlow has simply put it, identifying value through your customers’ perspective is critical to success. Thus, Lean is developed to deliver unquestionable value to the customer at the right time. To help you with that, the methodology focuses on identifying value-adding […]

We’ll get to the 10 Japanese words shortly, but first, we’ve put a couple of health warnings below to avoid a deluge of salty messages 🙂 By the way, each of the 10 words will be elaborated on in future posts, with a small story to illuminate. HEALTH WARNING 1: There’s a whole debate in […]

What does operational excellence mean? How can leaders create a culture of continuous improvement? And what does leadership really mean and look like? In his book The Façade of Excellence: Defining a New Normal of Leadership, John Dyer seeks to answer these questions by exploring four different leadership styles and illustrates through stories what it […]

Investing in the development of employees is the most important and rewarding thing a manager can do. For some reason, though, it’s often the last thing on a manager’s “to do” list. People development without proper planning in place normally results in internal and external conflict, which leads to confusion, low productivity, less motivation, and […]

The Misunderstood Impact of Misaligned Perceptions of Your Abilities With Your Boss …or, why it’s not about your risk of getting fired.    You might hear from your boss “you’re great, a rockstar, we have every faith in you, you’re going to go far, but…you could improve in these ways…” There are several reasons that […]

Following up on my recent collaboration with ChatGPT (“Alternative History: GM Uses Lean to Remain #1 in the Auto Industry“), I also asked the AI bot to simulate what might have gone differently in healthcare. I gave an initial prompt of “Simulate a scenario in which Toyota, in the year 2000, teaches American hospitals how […]

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. Arthur Ashe “Start where you are” doesn’t have to be about process! Try this exercise: Disregarding organisational boundaries, and in relation to the work you are already committed to (your “organising commitments”), who do you interact with? Then reflexively: who interacts with you […]

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis is a tool businesses and organizations use to evaluate the internal and external factors that can impact their success. It is a straightforward method that can provide valuable insights into a company’s current situation and help it make strategic decisions. The acronym SWOT stands for: Strengths: the unique qualities […]

You may have heard of ChatGPT, the latest buzz in artificial intelligence. ChatGPT is a chatbot by OpenAI that can answer your questions and hold a conversation. And, it is very good at this. It can handle almost anything connected with text. This tool (and the many others that are likely to follow) has the […]

BOOK EXCERPT – The city of Breda in the Netherlands has been on a lean journey for the past six years. Today we share an excerpt from the book The Lean Government, which sets the scene for the transformation. Words: Erik Ottens A snowstorm of confetti enveloped the people watching the parade. The tall floats […]

By Pascal Dennis (bio) My friend and colleague Mark Graban, always astute, has highlighted an important issue for Lean thinkers. Is it right and proper to call one’s self an ‘expert, master or sensei’? In a word – no. It’s important in my view to recognize that we humans are sly, lazy, imperfect beings. (At […]