Category Archives: Lean thinking

Lean Health Care: ThedaCare

Posted on December 21, 2005 by John Hunter

ThedaCare Shares Lean Secrets (link broken, so removed): ThedaCare adapted the lean business practice technique commonly referred to as Toyota Production System two years ago after a visit to the Ariens Co. in Brillion. There, ThedaCare officials saw firsthand how the process was implemented. “We were there and within 15 minutes, I knew this was the improvement system for us,” said Roger Gerard, ThedaCare’s chief learning officer. Each week, ThedaCare has several rapid improvement events or RIEs. During that process, … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Lean thinking, Management Articles

TPS v. Lean Manufacturing

Posted on December 19, 2005 by John Hunter

Great article from Superfactory, TPS vs. Lean and the Law of Unintended Consequences [the broken link was removed] by Art Smalley: Real TPS is not just about “flow” or “pull production” or “cellular manufacturing” or any of the other catchy phrases or tools you may frequently hear. For over fifty years TPS in Toyota has been primarily concerned with making a profit, and satisfying the customer with the highest possible quality at the lowest cost in the shortest lead-time, while … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Bad Visual Controls – Software

Posted on December 18, 2005 by John Hunter

Bad Visual Controls Example: Software via Lean Manufacturing Blog. Funny example. If I had to use it I might use a different adjective. In the example, the software uses icons that are not obvious. The user has pasted labels on their monitor with text description of each icon. The labels are smaller than the icons. Some resources for web usability and software usability “A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would.” (that … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Visual Work Instructions

Posted on December 17, 2005 by John Hunter

Via Got Boondoggle? Shorter Text for Visual Work Instructions (link broken 🙁 so removed) by Steven Blackwell: The line worker may not even read text that seems excessive. We have spent the last eight years observing line workers using visual work instructions and asking them if they read the text. If the text is a short sentence, the answer is usually “yes.” If the text is more than one sentence long, the answer is usually “no.” Another recent post, Poka-Yoke … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools, quote | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Project Kaizen Co-Blogging Week

Posted on December 6, 2005 by John Hunter

The Project Kaizen Co-Blogging Week has started. The posts in the first day have been interesting. Including, Improving Workgroups: The result is individuals doing individual work. People create their own training materials because the corporate materials “are proprietary” and there’s too much risk in sharing them (a ridiculous concept since the company in question hardly invented lean, the slides were all borrowed from outside lean knowledge, yet now this company doesn’t want to follow Toyota’s model by sharing). There’s an … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management

Ford’s Wrong Turn

Posted on December 5, 2005 by John Hunter

Mr. Ford’s Wrong Turn, Why U.S. Automakers Can’t Blame Japan by James P. Womack: What makes this claim so extraordinary is that Japanese companies, led by Toyota Motor Corp., are thrashing Ford by building vehicles in North American factories with North American-made parts and North American workers, who receive American-style wages and health benefits. And increasingly, these Japanese brand vehicles are engineered in America by Americans. Consider a few facts about Toyota. About 65 percent of the vehicles the firm … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Toyota Production System in Indiana

Posted on November 29, 2005 by John Hunter

Photo by Daniel R. Patmore Via Evolving Excellence [the broken link was removed], Indiana plant president passes on lessons [newspaper also broke link so I removed it too]: Q. Is it different teaching the Toyota Production System to American team members than it is to teach it to Japanese? A. It’s not so different. Americans are eager to learn. American team members are more serious about job security, so their motivation is higher than that of the Japanese. The Japanese … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , ,

Toyota Manufacturing Powerhouse

Posted on November 28, 2005 by John Hunter

Great required reading [the broken link was removed] via Evolving Excellence, Relentless [the broken link was removed], Detroit News: As Toyota expands rapidly, it is also grappling with a shortage of skilled managers and engineers. When it decided in June to build its seventh North American assembly plant in Woodstock, Ontario, officials said one reason they chose that site was because the new factory could be overseen by the team running its nearby Cambridge plant. Last month, the normally acquisition-shy … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Psychology, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Management Improvement Flavors

Posted on November 27, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean Manufacturing Visionary Jim Womack On Frontiers Of Lean Thinking [broken link has been removed], webcast and additional questions and answers: Question: For a firm seeking to improve — what comes first? Six Sigma quality or lean implementation? James Womack: Agh! These are all the same thing. You need to start with the value stream for every product, draw a map of its current state, and ask about each step: Is it valuable? Is it capable? Is it available? Is … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, quote, Six sigma, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Carnival of Lean Leadership #3

Posted on November 23, 2005 by John Hunter

Carnival of Lean Leadership #3 [the broken link was removed] from Evolving Excellence once again does a great job of collection links to posts worth reading, including: A big welcome to Norman Bodek, who has started his own blog, Kaikaku. Norman is well known for his Shingo Prize winning books. His first post is on Kaikaku and Kaizen as the “twin sisters” that can drive world class competitiveness. Six Sigma Blog adds to the holiday cheer with a post on … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles

Be Thankful for Lean Thinking

Posted on November 22, 2005 by John Hunter

Topics: Management Improvement and Economics The Dallas Federal Reserve white paper, Supply Chain Management: The Science of Better, Faster, Cheaper [the broken link was removed] by Thomas F. Siems provides a macroeconmic view of what to be thankful due to the practice of lean thinking: Through better information engineering, supply chain improvements have resulted in a reduced bullwhip effect, lower inventory levels, reduced logistics costs, and streamlined payments. These improvements appear to have helped produce macroeconomic benefits such as more … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Six sigma | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Performance Transformation

Posted on November 21, 2005 by John Hunter

Six steps to success – How to drive performance transformation by Gautam Kumra (India): Other companies encourage “lean” thinking, which began as an automotive-inspired and assembly-oriented methodology but which today is as established in many financial processes, service industries and parts of the public sector. “Lean” projects depend not just on rolling out new techniques but on changing basic ways of working.

Posted in India, Lean thinking, Management Articles

Process Leadership

Posted on November 20, 2005 by John Hunter

Process Leadership [the broken link was removed] by Daniel T Jones: the most promising approach is to create a small team, led by a high potential executive, operating initially outside the normal departmental structure and reporting to the top. They must be free to challenge the conventional wisdom, the firm’s current assets and relationships. Their job is to evaluate the core value creating processes of the organisation from the standpoint of the customer, and to work out how to flow … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Process improvement | Tagged

Problems with Lean Manufacturing Awards

Posted on November 17, 2005 by John Hunter

Dangers in Lean Manufacturing Awards from the Got Boondogle blog: My simple understanding of lean principles is to focus on the pursuit of company survival for eternity with the elimination of waste while adding value for customers, enhancing quality of life for employees and contributing to society. The pursuit of lean manufacturing awards is not on the list of objectives. Another good post from an excellent blog that is well worth reading. Much can go wrong when pursuing an award. … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing, Systems thinking

A Great Day for Georgia-Pacific

Posted on November 16, 2005 by John Hunter

A Great Day for Georgia-Pacific [the broken link was removed] by Bill Waddell The Koch people also said that G-P would be much better off not having to deal with “the distraction of quarterly reports” and they would be able to “execute strategic decisions much faster” if they did not have to drag Wall Street along with them. … They previously had been a Honda North America supplier, but have done so well they are going to sell automatic transmission … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles, Systems thinking

Lean Education Academic Network

Posted on November 14, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean Education Academic Network [the broken link was removed], is a group of academic and industry people interested in bringing lean content into academic programs. The Leaneduc email list will send you announcements from the network. From Exclusive Q&A with Jim Womack, Part 4: We recently came across a new industrial engineering text from a major American publisher titled something like “Principles of Lean Engineering” in which the first chapter was about … Economic Order Quantity! It got Jim so … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Lean thinking | Tagged | 1 Comment