Many Lean principles are used in everyday life. PDCA is no exception. Today’s podcast discusses how the process of coaching youth sports uses the Deming cycle. This 12-minute podcast also talks about committing to solving the problem. Just because you can make an improvement doesn’t mean that you are going Read more…
Once again, I had the pleasure of hosting an interview with Karen Martin. She recently co-authored a book with Mike Osterling. It’s titled Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation. (If you are interested in buying the book, it is available at Amazon.com.)
Welcome to episode 2 of “Talking Lean” with Jeff Hajek and Tim McMahon. We had a lot of fun doing the first one, and this second go around is no different. I always come away from discussions with Tim reinvigorated about continuous improvement. Hopefully, you end up feeling the same way when listening to us.
Welcome to Episode 1 of “Talking Lean” with Jeff Hajek (me) and Tim McMahon (from the “A Lean Journey” blog). This show is intended to be a buffet of Lean bites. Tim and I both have a variety of features that we regularly post on our websites. Unfortunately, great content such as this can get lost in a sea of Lean noise.
Today I am pleased to be posting a short conversation I had with Karen Martin. She is the author of The Outstanding Organization and a recent Shingo Research Award recipient for that work. She is also one of my friends in the online continuous improvement community, so I am especially Read more…
In my consulting travels, I often find instances where common sense dictates. Unfortunately, it is not common sense until you open up your boundaries and venture a bit up and down the value stream to see what your internal suppliers and customers are doing. Learn more about ‘looking over the Read more…
Well, I have finally gotten around to editing the second part of my interview with Jay Watson about The Lean Management Mindset. If you are a regular reader/listener of the Gotta Go Lean Blog, you will recall that several weeks back, I posted part one, and mentioned that I’d post Read more…
This week, we have the first of a two part podcast series on the Six Simple Steps toward a Lean Management Mindset. In these recordings, I interviewed Jay Watson. He recently completed a six week project, and his work highlighted some lessons that he learned over the course of his Read more…
I’m pleased to be posting an interview I did last month with Tim McMahon. He’s a Lean Manufacturing Leader at a fiber optics company, the Social Networking Lead for the Northeast region of the Association of Manufacturing Excellence, and has a Lean blog titled, A Lean Journey. He also Twitters Read more…
We’ve got a special treat for today’s podcast. A few weeks back, I had a chance to interview Mike Osterling. He’s one of the co-authors of The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service and Technical Environments, owns his own consulting business, is a frequent speaker at organizations Read more…
I recently had the pleasure of spending some time chatting with Jay Watson about engaging employees in Lean efforts. Jay has worked at Motorola, GE, AlliedSignal, and Honeywell over his 35-year career, so the ideas he has about engaging employees are not just theory. He’s been doing this for a Read more…
Today’s podcast addresses a topic that many ‘Lean Rookies’ face: the fear of failure. Making mistakes is a part of kaizen–when you are trying a lot of things quickly, not all of them are going to work out. Listen in to a story about how I overcame a failure on my very Read more…