The Lean Enterprise Institute has recently published Kaizen Express, an overview of the classic characteristics of “lean manufacturing” and, by implication, the Toyota Production System. As I set out to review the book, I found myself heading in two directions. One is the content of the book itself. Over the years, there have been a [...]
The Lean Enterprise Institute is taking up a “Back to Basics” theme. But what, exactly, are “the basics” of the Toyota Production System? This is critically important. Permit me to cite an analogy. Look at a house. What do you see? What would you say are “the basics?” At first glance, all houses have walls, [...]
John Shook’s latest column on LEI’s site is about coaching and whether it is better to give them the answers or just ask questions. Asking questions in a way that actually teaches is a skill that we, as a “lean” community do not foster very well. Certainly in U.S. corporate culture, we are expected to [...]
When communicating ideas and concepts, a quick sketch or visual is usually much more clear than a bunch of words. A lot of us, however, never developed the skill to get a picture in our heads onto paper. Enter Dave Gray who has a web site with instructive videos, devoted to this. It looks like [...]
Greg Eisenbach, in his Grassroots Innovation blog, cites a article that gets to the very root of organizational learning, respect for people, and a myriad of other issues. The article, Teaching Smart people How To Learn was written by Chris Argyris back in 1991. What struck me about it is that it packs a double-whammy [...]
Managing to Learn by John Shook is the latest in the classic series of books published by the Lean Enterprise Institute. It is subtitled “Using the A3 management process to solve problems, gain agreement, mentor, and lead” and that pretty well sums it up. Like many of the previous LEI books, it is built around [...]
It is fall, and with fall comes the annual spate of postings on various discussion boards by advanced degree students working on papers and dissertations about “lean.” In these postings, most of them are using some kind of survey instrument, and many of them are multiple choice. The latest one I have asks questions around [...]
Jim left a great post on The Whiteboard way too long ago. His problems seem to sum up to these statements: Every valve is hand made one by one in batches through several processes. …about a 10% turnover rate…Consequently we are always training new people…the supervisor needs to make sure the worker understands the job [...]
As I mentioned a long time ago, Art Smalley’s web site, http://artoflean.com, is an excellent resource for learning. His thinking is cutting edge – he has kept up in the field. I am mentioning it here because he has a couple of really good resources available. Learning From Toyota is a presentation that challenges some [...]
Jim Collins book “ Good to Great” has been a best selling business book for several years. But I am not so sure everyone knows about Jim Collins web site. It as on-line mini-lectures, and much more material that reinforces the concepts outlined in the book. As for how the concepts in the book relate [...]