Businesses are full of managerial approval loops. An employee wants to take a break, and he must check in with the supervisor. An employee wants to buy a hand tool, and she must go through channels to put in the request. A back-office employee wants to do something to take Read more…
Starting anything new can be a challenge. It can be especially so at the beginning of a process improvement initiative. Whether the new methods come from Lean, Six Sigma, a hybrid of the two, or a homegrown philosophy, people have a natural resistance to change. And managing that resistance poorly Read more…
Over the years while I was working for other companies, I would sit down in the evening and take notes about what I learned during the day. Eventually, I compiled it into something of a personal guide I could reference. That guide subsequently formed the foundation for my lean dictionary. Read more…
I received a very interesting e-mail this morning from one of my readers regarding yesterday’s post on policy deployment. Here it is: Jeff: Have you started using some sort of speech-to-text software? There are several grammar/syntax errors in today’s post—and that’s unusual. As always, the post is full of good Read more…
Policy Deployment is the (usually) annual process of reviewing the strategic goals of an organization and aligning the company’s resources towards meeting those goals. Hoshin Kanri is the Japanese term that means roughly the same. The literal translation, like many foreign words, is open to interpretation, but many versions seem Read more…
One of the core tenets of continuous improvement is to work relentlessly to eliminate waste. But waste is a relative concept. Think about the accounting department in your company? Do you consider the credit checks they do to be value added? What about the IT department troubleshooting a systems problem? Read more…
Just a quick follow up about our webinar yesterday entitled “8 Ways to Create an Infrastructure that Supports Lean”. The webinar seemed to strike a chord with a lot of people, and we have gotten a lot of positive feedback about it. For your convenience, we have posted a recording Read more…
There are two basic types of people. Those who are worried about trying an idea that won’t work, and those that are worried about not trying an idea that might work. The first type can go a whole career with some degree of success. Every time I play golf, I Read more…
I just read an interesting article that said the State of Indiana will no longer require their schools to teach cursive in class. My first response was more emotional than logical. I couldn’t believe that cursive writing is dying. It would be hard to imagine that my kids would not Read more…
I heard an interesting story the other day about baggage fees. Although the decision to charge for extra bags has alienated travelers, it hasn’t seemed to reduce the number of fliers significantly. But the fees did, however, alter passenger behavior. Travelers take fewer bags with them now when they catch Read more…
At beginning of this year I decided to apply for the Shingo prize for my book Whaddaya Mean I Gotta Be Lean? Technically, the award is called “The Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award”, but most people just refer to the award as The Shingo Prize. Unfortunately, the steering committee Read more…
I’ll admit, I sometimes have readers and customers coming to me questioning my policies and practices. In some cases I recognize immediately that I’m not providing the best service and I change my process on the spot. But as a small company, I am often at the mercy of the Read more…