Category Archives: Lean thinking

Improvement Tools and Improving Management

Posted on August 21, 2007 by John Hunter

Tools are just tools [the broken link has been removed] by Lee Fried We have begun to shift away from a tool driven approach to one more centered on improving our management systems. This makes the work far more difficult, … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Education, Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools, Systems thinking | Tagged , | 1 Comment

More Bad Customer Service Examples :-(

Posted on August 19, 2007 by John Hunter

It is sad to see so many examples of bad customer service. I wish enough companies would adopt management improvement principles so that at least I could avoid dealing with the others altogether. Here are 2 more bad examples from … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Lean thinking, Management, Public Sector | 2 Comments

Lean Dentist Podcast

Posted on August 8, 2007 by John Hunter

This podcast by Mark Graban with Dr. Sami Bahri, “The World’s First Lean Dentist” is well worth listening to. It offers a wonderful example of how to apply lean ideas (I really appreciate how obvious the focus on learning and … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Lean thinking, Management, webcast | Comments Off on Lean Dentist Podcast

Workplace Management by Taiichi Ohno

Posted on August 8, 2007 by John Hunter

Workplace Management by Taiichi Ohno is an excellent management book. Taiichi Ohno is known as the father of the Toyota Production System (TPS), also called lean manufacturing. He dictated the text to the Japan Management Association (in a series of … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Help Wanted: Lean Manufacturing Experts

Posted on August 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Is There A Lean Employee Deficit?: Two recent articles in respected manufacturing publications highlighted a topic of interest for us at Ultriva: The difficulty of finding and retaining manufacturing talent. The first was an article from the American Society for … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Lean thinking, Management | 2 Comments

Management by Walking Around

Posted on July 18, 2007 by John Hunter

Management by walking around (MBWA) is based on the concept that a manager needs to actually understand what is really going on – not just view reports in an office. By seeing the actual state of affairs they can better … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Lean thinking, Management | 4 Comments

From Lean Tools to Lean Management

Posted on July 11, 2007 by John Hunter

From lean tools to lean management [the broken link was removed] by Jim Womack: The attraction of tools is that they can be employed at many points within an organization, often by staff improvement teams or external consultants. Even better, … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on From Lean Tools to Lean Management

New Articles on Toyota Management

Posted on July 8, 2007 by John Hunter

Harvard Business Review has a new article on Toyota that both the Elegant Solutions blog (by Matthew E. May author of Elegant Solutions: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation – via: lean blog) and Got Boondoggle, have raved about. Amazing HBR … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments

No Excessive Senior Executive Pay at Toyota

Posted on June 23, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota Boosts Executives’ Bonuses on Record Earnings (link broken by Bloomberg has been removed – why can’t companies with huge IT budgets follow even basic web usability rules like not breaking urls?): Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest automaker by … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Psychology, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Why Isn’t Work Standard?

Posted on June 21, 2007 by John Hunter

Are You Really Asking? by Mark Graban The worst form would be, “Why the hell aren’t you following the standard work??? How many times do I have to emphasize that??” A better approach might be, “It appears that the standard … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools, Systems thinking | 5 Comments