Category Archives: Lean thinking

The Toyota Way Fieldbook

Posted on October 6, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement The Toyota Way Fieldbook – a Practical Guide to implementing Toyota’s 4Ps by Jeffrey Liker has just been released. For this book he is joined by David Meier, and they delve into applying the concepts from his excellent book: The Toyota Way. Toyota’s 4Ps: Philosophy, Processes, People, and Partners. “The Toyota Way Fieldbook details the language, concepts, and tools that managers need to use Toyota’s success-proven practices in any organization. Readers are given valuable insights into the … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Lean thinking, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Lean Government

Posted on October 4, 2005 by John Hunter

Making Government Work [the broken link was removed] by Tom Vilsack via Panta Rei [the broken link was removed]: We redesigned the child welfare system to place greater focus on the complex and hard cases that people live out every day. We cut down paperwork so workers would have more time to spend helping children. That effort was part of our charter agency effort, which the Kennedy School at Harvard and the Ash Institute recently recognized as an Innovation of … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Public Sector | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Dramatic Spread of Lean Thinking

Posted on October 3, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement and Economics The Dramatic Spread of Lean Thinking [the broken link was removed] by Jim Womack: Currently we are experiencing an explosion of interest in applying lean thinking to practically every process in every corner of the world. And it is causing all of us in the Lean Community to think about how we can best serve the needs we are hearing about. … I am delighted with the spread of lean thinking far beyond the factory … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Lion of Lean

Posted on September 25, 2005 by John Hunter

Great article – The Lion of Lean: An Interview with James Womack [broken link was removed] by Francis J. Quinn, Supply Chain Management Review: Let’s just take one example in the purchasing area. People say, “Yes, we’re going to have a lean purchasing organization. And we’ll start by having target pricing.” You say, “Great, but how are you going to do target pricing?” “Well, we’ll set the prices 5 percent below what they are now and that will be our … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged

Visually Lean

Posted on September 2, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean From The Get-Go [the broken link has been removed] by Derek Korn. This short article does a nice job of illustrating several interesting lean concepts in practice. Work areas that are compact, but not cramped, not only promote efficient motion, but also improve scheduling accuracy by allowing a more precisely predictable determination of a job’s total cycle time. This total cycle time is not just the time a machine is producing chips; it takes into account all factors involved … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles | Tagged | 1 Comment

Lean Manufacturing at Castcon-Stone

Posted on August 29, 2005 by John Hunter

Lean manufacturing transforms operations at Saxonburg company: Kerckhoff said redoing certain portions of products accounted for about 12 percent of the company’s volume of work last year. However, after implementing the new lean manufacturing initiative, the number is now down to about 4 percent, and most of the rework is so minor that the company would not have tracked it in the past.

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing

Going Lean in Health Care

Posted on August 17, 2005 by John Hunter

Going Lean in Health Care [the broken link has been removed] a report from the Institute for Healthcare improvement based on presentation by James Womack and others. This report is an another excellent resource from IHI, which I have mentioned before is doing great things. This is definitely worth reading. Lean principles hold the promise of reducing or eliminating wasted time, money, and energy in health care, creating a system that is efficient, effective, and truly responsive to the needs … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Lean thinking, Management, Respect | 7 Comments

Bezos on Lean Thinking

Posted on July 29, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement and Investing 10 Questions for Jeff Bezos, time.com via Lean Manufacturing Blog Time: Here’s a question you probably hear all the time: read any good books lately? Bezos: [Laughs.] I read a book recently about Toyota’s lean production methodology, which is very interesting Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. He really understand many quality management ideas: customer focus, long term thinking, process improvement, innovation. He also understands finance much better than most. I believe … Continue reading →

Posted in Investing, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Online Lean Manufacturing Tutorials

Posted on July 27, 2005 by John Hunter

Tutorials on Lean Production / Lean Manufacturing [the broken link was removed] from the Defense Acquisition University. The site includes five short online videos by James Womack [the broken link was removed]. The site provides a nice introduction to lean ideas. Mr. John Shook… “Lean Manufacturing is a manufacturing philosophy which shortens the time between the customer order and the product build/shipment by eliminating sources of waste.” … Key lean principles are: … – Waste minimization by removing all non-value … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking

The Quality of Lean

Posted on July 15, 2005 by John Hunter

The Quality of Lean [the broken link was removed] post on Evolving Excellence. Lean has become so popular that companies (especially General Motors) have been snatching up lean experts, especially those with true TPS experience. Toyota itself is having difficulty finding and training appropriate people for their new plants, and in many cases are having to rely on the Lean experts at their component suppliers. This has even led to Toyota outsourcing Lean management for some plants

Posted in Lean thinking, Management Articles

Management Improvement History

Posted on September 23, 2004 by John Hunter

I do believe we need to improve our practice of Quality (and to do that we need to understand what happened in the past and why it was not more successful). The idea that Design of Experiments (DoE) was at the core of some Quality Movement to me is not at all accurate. In my experience only a few Quality professionals today understand what it means and how it should be applied. The idea that it was common place in the 40’s I seriously doubt (though I don’t have first hand knowledge of this). I find it difficult to believe we would have decided to stop using DoE if it was commonly done previously. The understanding I have from those that should know (like George Box and previously my father – Bill Hunter) is that it was not at all common practice and still is not outside of a few industries and even there it is isolated in the domain of a few experts. Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Design of Experiments, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, Process improvement, Quality tools, Six sigma, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments