Tag: lean management
Management Books
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Workplace Management: Taiichi Ohno
by
Taiichi Ohno
"If you insist on blindly calculating individual costs and waste time insisting that this is profitable of that is not profitable, you will just increase the cost of your low volume products. For this reason there are many cases in this world where companies will discontinue car models that are actually profitable, but are money losers according to their calculations. Likewise, there are cases where companies sell a lot of model that they think is profitable but in fact are only increasing their loses." page 32
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Toyota Talent: Developing Your People the Toyota Way
by
Jeffrey Liker, David Meier
Toyota Talent walks you through the rigorous methodology used by this global powerhouse to grow high-performing individuals from within. Beginning with a review of Toyota's landmark approach to developing people, the authors illustrate the critical importance of creating a learning and teaching culture in your organization. They provide specific examples necessary to train employees in all areas-from the shop floor to engineering to staff members in service organizations-and show you how to support and encourage every individual to reach his or her top potential.
Toyota Talent provides you with the inside knowledge you need to
* Identify your development needs and create a training plan
* Understand the various types of work and how to break complicated jobs into teachable skills
* Set behavioral expectations by properly preparing your workplace
* Recognize and develop potential trainers within your workforce
* Effectively educate non-manufacturing employees and members of the staff
* Develop internal Lean Manufacturing experts
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Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results
by
Mike Rother
"Toyota Kata gets to the essence of how Toyota manages continuous improvement and human ingenuity, through its improvement kata and coaching kata. Mike Rother explains why typical companies fail to understand the core of lean and make limited progress—and what it takes to make it a real part of your culture."
—Jeffrey K. Liker, bestselling author of The Toyota Way
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Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota's PDCA Management System
by
Art Smalley, Durward K. Sobek
Winner of a 2009 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize. The A3 report has proven to be a key tool In Toyota’s successful move toward organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and improvement, especially within its engineering and R&D organizations. The power of the A3 report, however, derives not from the report itself, but rather from the development of the culture and mindset required for the implementation of the A3 system. In other words, A3 reports are not just an end product but are evidence of a powerful set of dynamics that is referred to as A3 Thinking.
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Gemba Walks:
by
Jim Womack
This book complies Womack's essays on the practice of lean and adds some additional context to the essays.
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The Lean Startup:
by
Eric Ries
Great book that is also very popular in general management circles and software development circles (the software development and startup areas overlap so much today that this is no surprise). The book focuses on applying lean thinking ideas in an entrepreneurial setting. So the book focuses on quick success and customer focus.
Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or those in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.
The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,†rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility and quickly.
Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
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The Birth of Lean:
by
Taiichi Ohno, Eiji Toyoda
by Koichi Shimokawa and Takahiro Fujimoto (Editors).
There are a lot of books that describe the Toyota Production System, but most do so in a way that implies that there was a master plan to create a company-wide improvement system. But as the pioneers in The Birth of Lean explain, there was no master plan—TPS came about through experimentation, trial and error, and an evolution of ideas that shaped Toyota’s structure and management system.
This is an honest look at the origins of Lean, written in the words of the people who created the system. Through interviews and annotated talks, you will hear first-person accounts of what these innovators and problem-solvers did and why they did it. You’ll read rare, personal commentaries that explain the interplay of (sometimes opposing) ideas that created a revolution in thinking.
In The Birth of Lean, you’ll get a glimpse inside the minds and thought processes of the system’s creators and innovators:
Taiichi Ohno ”the man who envisioned a way of working that would evolve into the Toyota Production System
Eiji Toyoda ”the former Toyota President and Chairman who oversaw the development of TPS and the inclusion of TQC at Toyota
Kikuo Suzumura ”the Toyota manager recognized as the most influential in translating Ohno’s ideas into actionable items
Michikazu Tanaka ”the manager and executive at Toyota affiliate Daihatsu who adapted TPS to his organization
Kaneyoshi Kusunoki ”the former head of Toyota's production engineering organization who refined the buffering system in use in Toyota’s operations
Masao Nemoto ”the Toyota executive central to the deployment of TQC at Toyota
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Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements
by
Mark Graban
Healthcare Kaizen focuses on the principles and methods of daily continuous improvement, or Kaizen, for healthcare professionals and organizations.
The experiences shared in this book prove that people actually love change when they are fully engaged in the process, get to make improvements that improve patient care and make their day less frustrating, and when they don’t fear being laid off as a result of their improvements.
All of the examples in the book were shared by leading healthcare organizations, with over 200 full-color pictures and visual illustrations of Kaizen-based improvements that were initiated by nurses, physicians, housekeepers, senior executives and other staff members at all levels.
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Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability
by
John Hunter
The book provides an overview for viewing management as a system. It is largely based on those of Dr. Deming, along with natural outgrowths or extensions of his ideas such as lean manufacturing and agile software development.
To achieve great results there must be a continual focus on achieving results today and building enterprise capacity to maximize results over the long term. Managers have many management concepts, pactices and tools available to help them in this quest. The challenge is to create and continually build and improve a management system for the enterprise that leads to success.
The book provides a framework for management thinking. With this framework the practices and tools can be applied to build enterprise capacity and improve efficiency and effectiveness.
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Tool Time Handbook 1.0 for Lean:
by
David P. Langford
Co-authored by David P. Langford and Sarah Pavelka, this spiral bound handbook is an excellent resource. It is written in an easy-to-understand format with diagrams and explanations of 23 Lean Quality Improvement Tools and their suggested uses.
You'll understand how Lean tools can successfully be applied to the 9 Step PDSA Improvement Process (Plan-Do-Study-Act Process).
Our goal was simplicity. Each tool has a process explanation and is graphically represented. All of the Lean Quality Learning tools are also referenced to the 9 Step PDSA cycle for fast tool selection and implementation. This enables you to spend less time selecting tools and more time learning how, when and where to use them.
Tool Time for Lean books are being used by students, administrators, board members, personnel staff, healthcare professionals, and business leaders, as well as by employees from schools, universities, corporations, hospitals, and government agencies.
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The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality
by
W. Edwards Deming, Joyce Orsini
The book is filled with articles, papers, lectures, and notes touching on a wide range of topics, but which focus on Deming's overriding message: quality and operations are all about systems, not individual performance; the system has to be designed so that the worker can perform well.
Published in cooperation with The W. Edwards Deming Institute, The Essential Deming captures Deming's life's worth of thinking and writing. Dr. Orsini provides expert commentary throughout, delivering a powerful, practical guide to superior management. With The Essential Deming, you have the rationale, insight, and best practices you need to transform your organization.
Management Articles
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Going Lean in Health Care
by
Jim Womack
"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 of patients ? the 'customers' at the heart of it all."
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TPS vs. Lean and the Law of Unintended Consequences
by
Art Smalley
"In every piece of TPS literature from Toyota, this stated aim is mixed in with the twin production principles of Just in Time (make and deliver the right part, in the right amount, at the right time), and Jidoka (build in quality at the process), as well as the notion of continuous improvement by standardization and elimination of waste in all operations to improve quality, cost, productivity, lead-time, safety, morale and other metrics as needed. This clear objective has not substantially changed since the first internal TPS training manual was drafted over thirty years ago."
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Lean Thinking and Management
by
John Hunter
"The biggest thing I think we need to learn from this is that improving management is not easy. The concepts may seem simple but most of us can look around and see much more Dilbert Boss behavior than lean thinking behavior. And the gap between those two types of behavior seems to rise as you go 'up' the organization chart."
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William Considine embraces Lean Six Sigma to improve Akron Children’s Hospital
"before it brought out the hammers, it asked members of the department and of the hospital's Lean Six Sigma team to review the problem. Turns out, a simple redesign of the processes and space solved the problem. No space added, no employees added, and $3.5 million saved.
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f your child needed an MRI two years ago, the waiting list at Akron Children’s was about 25 to 28 days. Through discussion with department employees and dissection of the workload, the hospital was able to add 35 MRI tests a week, dropping the wait time to three days or less."
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Create a System That Lets People Take Pride in Their Work
by
John Hunter
"Using the term implies that it one person empowers another person. This is not the correct view. Instead we each play a role within a system. Yes there are constraints on your actions based on the role you are playing. Does a security guard empower the CEO to enter the building?
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You don't need to think about empowering people if you have a system that lets people take pride in what they do. If you think you need to empower staff, instead fix the system that requires you to think they are in need of empowerment."
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The Equally Important “Respect for People†Principle
by
Bob Emiliani
"The 'Respect for People' principle encompasses all key stakeholders: employees, suppliers, customers, investors, and communities. Thus, rather than representing a single dyad, the 'Respect for People' principle is a multilateral expression of the need for balanced, mutually respectful relationships, cooperation, and co-prosperity with these key stakeholders."
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Respect for People
by
Art Smalley
"The fifth item of my list pertains to development of employee talent over time. Respect for people means developing their latent skills in both on the job and off the job training. It is easy to invest money in new technology, software, or equipment. It takes time, effort, and planning to invest in employee skills development. Canned training programs and Powerpoint slide presentations do not do the job."
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Adding Customer Value in Development at Xerox
"Business901 Podcast featured Patrick Waara talking about Xerox’s use of Agile techniques... Our conversation originally was designed to discuss swarming and Lean problem solving. However we ventured off into the subject of how Lean, Six Sigma and Agile all work under the same umbrella"
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Operational Excellence: From Fragmented Vocation to Principle-Driven Profession
by
Steven Spear
"Be it lean, six sigma, lean six sigma, business process excellence, reengineering, or TPS, the common objective is creating substantial and sustainable competitive advantage by managing the internal operations of organizations—across the spectrum of development, design, and delivery—to create exceptional differentials in performance across the dimensions of quality, cost, reliability, responsiveness, security, and agility."
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Zenjidoka - A Simple Tool for a Complex Problem
by
Norman Bodek
"Had the tools of the Toyota Production System been extended from the factory floor worker to every employee who makes contact with the customer, Toyota could have dramatically reduced the resulting financial impact and human tragedy.
...
Zenjidoka is a new word meaning "Total Jidoka." Instead of confining Jidoka to the factory floor, Zenjidoka extends Jidoka to every employee who has any contact with the end customer."
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Actionable Metrics
by
John Hunter
"Metrics are valuable when they are actionable. Think about what will be done if certain results are shown by the data. If you can't think of actions you would take, it may be that metric is not worth tracking."
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Resist your machine thinking!
by
Jeffrey Liker
"To maintain consistent output, one must continually adjust the
system to changing environmental conditions. This is called dynamic
homeostasis in systems thinking, or running to stay in place.
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Maintenance comes from having clearly defined standards, observing
carefully for deviations from those standards, and then developing
and implementing countermeasures to eliminate the deviations."
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Why Lean Programs Fail
by
Jeffrey Liker, Mike Rother
"a large survey conducted by Industry Week in 2007 found that only 2 percent of companies achieved their anticipated results... When we look at lean in this way it is not only a set of techniques for eliminating waste, but a process by which managers as leaders develop people so that desired results can be achieved, again and again. That means coaching people in practicing an improvement kata every day."
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Zenjidoka III - Building Excellent People
by
Norman Bodek
"Zenjidoka teaches employees (including the dealers) to be self-reliant, empowering them to use every tool and resource at their disposal to immediately investigate and address the customer’s problem... Companies that want to extend quality beyond the factory walls and implement Zenjidoka need to have employees who are skilled enough that they can be trusted with the autonomy to identify and solve customer problems. The development of excellent employees, or Hitozukuri, is necessary to make Zenjidoka work."
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How Do We Know What We Know? - Deming’s SoPK Part IV
by
John Hunter
"If we can break from such beliefs that are not useful in modern organizations, we can improve our decisions. Having a Deming-based theory of knowledge will help us break from those beliefs and it will help us be more thoughtful as we learn to question other management beliefs we hold –many of which simply are not useful –or cause harm.
Understanding the theory of knowledge within the context of the Deming’s System for Managing helps us more effectively and consistently learn and improve the processes and systems we work with. "
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The Gemba Walk
by
Norman Bodek
"the plant manager got up from behind his desk. He asked me to join him on his daily walk; in fact he told me that he walked the plant twice a day every day and that it was the most valuable part of his day...
The plant manager asked those questions and you could see the excitement on the face of the supervisor as he was answering the questions. I learned that there’s enormous power in the leader asking questions and then just listening – yes; this is the key to ask the question and then to just listen carefully, not judgmentally."
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Are lean principles universal?
by
Michael Ballé
"There is only one golden rule: we make people before we make parts. This requires a spirit of challenge, open mind and teamwork, as Pascal Dennis phrased it in his great lean novel Andy and Me. Every industry is different, but all human beings share the same capabilities and potentials – that is universal. As one Sensei once told me, the biggest room is the room for improvement."
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How to Get a New Management Strategy, Tool or Concept Adopted
by
John Hunter
"Often when learning about Deming’s ideas on management, lean manufacturing, design of experiments, PDSA… people become excited. They discover new ideas that show great promise to alleviate the troubles they have in their workplace and lead them to better results. But how to actually get their organization to adopt the ideas often confounds them..."
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Lean Leadership Kaizen is Management
by
Mark Rosenthal
"First they tried copying the benchmarked system on a small-scale test to deepen their understanding of what they had studied. Trying it on their parts surfaced differences that weren’t obvious at first, and they learned copying definitely wouldn’t work.
Key: The reason they tried to copy was to learn more about it. This was a small-scale concept test, not an attempt at wholesale implementation...
So, while an individual improvement task might take longer as people learn, in the end there is a multiplier effect as more and more people get better and better at making improvements. Sadly, it is really impossible to assign an ROI to that, so traditional management doesn’t allow for it..."
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Inside Amazon's Idea Machine: How Bezos Decodes The Customer
by
Jeff Bezos
"For Bezos a data-driven customer focus lets him take risks to innovate, secure in the belief that he’s doing the right thing. 'We are comfortable planting seeds and waiting for them to grow into trees,' says Bezos. 'We don’t focus on the optics of the next quarter; we focus on what is going to be good for customers. I think this aspect of our culture is rare.'"
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Keys to the Effective Use of the PDSA Improvement Cycle
by
John Hunter
"The PDSA cycle is a learning cycle based on experiments. When using the PDSA cycle prediction of the results are important... The plan stage may well take 80% (or even more) of the effort on the first turn of the PDSA cycle in a new series. The Do stage may well take 80% of of the time - it usually doesn't take much effort (to just collect a bit of extra data) but it may take time for that data to be ready to collect."
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3 Reasons Why Layoffs Don't Benefit Hospitals in the Long Run
"ThedaCare retrains its employees in a similar fashion to Scripps in that it guarantees to help employees find new employment primarily within the health system or elsewhere, and its emphasis on Lean principles has led to very successful retraining efforts. 'The number of people we've redeployed or retrained has varied from as few as 25 to up to 75 per year,' Dr. Gruner says. 'We would like that to be a higher number, not lower, because a higher number means we're doing a better job of identifying waste.'"
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The Promise of Lean in Health Care
by
John Toussaint
and Leonard L. Berry, PhD. "When well executed, Lean transforms how an organization works and creates an insatiable quest for improvement. In this article, we define Lean and present 6 principles that constitute the essential dynamic of Lean management: attitude of continuous improvement, value creation, unity of purpose, respect for front-line workers, visual tracking, and flexible regimentation. Health care case studies illustrate each principle. The goal of this article is to provide a template for health care leaders to use in considering the implementation of the Lean management system or in assessing the current state of implementation in their organizations."
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Profit = Market Price - Actual Cost or Price = Cost + Desired Profit
by
John Hunter
"Apple would probably sell very few iPhones for $2,000 more than they cost today. How many they would sell at $100 more or $100 less may change significantly but they would still be huge sellers at either of those prices. So that "market sets the price" idea is not 100% accurate (I don't think anyway).
...
Pricing decisions also have big long term versus short term considerations. Apple has started pricing many things in a way which makes it hard for competitors to undercut them. Apple, almost for sure could charge more for the laptops they sell and the iPad and iPhone. But if they did they make it easier for a competitor to compete on price. This pricing decision is an Apple decision not a market decision."
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Respect for People
by
Jim Womack
"the manager isn’t a morale booster, always saying, 'Great job!' Instead the manager challenges the employees every step of the way, asking for more thought, more facts, and more discussion, when the employees just want to implement their favored solution.
Over time I've come to realize that this problem solving process is actually the highest form of respect."
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The Promise of Lean in Health Care
by
John Toussaint
"Health care cases reveal that Lean is as applicable in complex knowledge work as it is in assembly-line manufacturing. When well executed, Lean transforms how an organization works and creates an insatiable quest for improvement. In this article, we define Lean and present 6 principles that constitute the essential dynamic of Lean management: attitude of continuous improvement, value creation, unity of purpose, respect for front-line workers, visual tracking, and flexible regimentation.
...
Lean is a journey, not a destination. Unlike specific programs, Lean has no finish line. Creating a culture of Lean is to create an insa- tiable appetite for improvement; there is no turning back."
Management Web Sites and Resources
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Curious Cat Management Improvement Articles
by
John Hunter
Hundreds of useful management articles hand selected to help managers improve the performance of their organization. Sorted by topic including: Deming, lean manufacturing, six sigma, continual improvement, innovation, leadership, managing people, software development, psychology and systems thinking.
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Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
by
John Hunter
Blog by John Hunter on many topics to to improve the management of organizations, including: Deming, lean manufacturing, agile software development, evidence based decision making, customer focus, innovation, six sigma, systems thinking, leadership, psychology, ...
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Superfactory
Dedicated to spreading manufacturing and enterprise excellence information with an aim to improve manufacturing efficiency and productivity worldwide.
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Toyota Production System
Site on Toyota.com. "The Toyota Production System (TPS) was established based on two concepts: The first is called 'jidoka'(which can be loosely translated as 'automation with a human touch') which means that when a problem occurs, the equipment stops immediately, preventing defective products from being produced; The second is the concept of 'Just-in-Time,' in which each process produces only what is needed by the next process in a continuous flow."
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Daily Kaizen
by
Lee Fried
Blog by Lee Fried tracking the journey of a world-class health care system as it continuously improves to serve its members. He works for Group Health Cooperative non-profit care system in Seattle, Washington.
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Jamie Flinchbaugh
by
Jamie Flinchbaugh
Blog on lean culture, transformational leadership, and entrepreneurial excellence. Jamie is a consultant and co-author of The Hitchhiker.s Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road.
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Gemba Tales
Blog by Mark Hamel exploring experiences (some successful, some not) of the author and other lean practitioners and shared for the purpose of providing insight into the application of lean concepts.
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Beyond Lean
Blog by industrial engineering with the theme of reflecting on lean management and the idea that business units should be educated on lean thinking and principles.
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Lean Enterprise Institute
by
Jim Womack
"We carefully develop hypotheses about lean thinking and experiment to see which approaches work best in the real world. We then write up and teach what we discover, providing new methods for organizational transformation. We strive to answer the simple question of every manager, "What can I do on Monday morning to make a difference in my organization?" And, by creating a strong Lean Community through our website and public events we try to give managers the courage to become lean change agents."
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Shmula
by
Peter Abilla
"This blog is my take on technology, business, operations, The Toyota Production System / Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Queueing Theory, operations research, building software, the customer experience (especially ethnography and design thinking and word-of-mouth marketing)"
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Lean Journey
"My Lean Journey started about 10 years ago with a career change from R&D to manufacturing. I started this Blog to share lessons along the way and chronicle 'My Lean Journey in the Quest for True North'. With so much emphasis on continuous improvement we often miss the true teaching of TPS (Thinking People System). Lean is a 'Learning' process so sharing your lessons and opinions are welcome."
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Lean is Good
Reflections on Deming, lean and learning by Bruce Baker and Bryan Zeigler.
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Gotta Go Lean
by
Jeff Hajek
"The Gotta Go Lean Blog focuses on Lean at the front line. We help managers and employees work together to make Lean more productive for the company, and jobs more satisfying for workers."
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Got Boondoggle
by
Mike Wroblewski
"My lean experiences include learning directly from the original lean leaders including Dr. Shigeo Shingo. As a certified Six Sigma Black Belt, I believe quality is a cornerstone of all improvement actions. By sharing these experiences and insights, my hope is that you may benefit on your lean journey."
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Life and Legacy of William G. Hunter
by
John Hunter, William G. Hunter
George Box, Stuart Hunter and Bill wrote what has become a classic text for experimenters in scientific and business circles, Statistics for Experimenters.
Bill also was a leader in the emergence of the management improvement movement. George Box and Bill co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Bill Hunter was also the founding chair of the ASQ statistics division.
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Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections
by
John Hunter
The aim of Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections is to contribute to the successful adoption of management improvement to advance joy in work and joy in life.
The site provides connections to resources on a wide variety of management topics to help managers improve the performance of their organization. The site was started in 1996 by John Hunter.
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Benjamin Mitchell's Blog
by
Benjamin Mitchell
"I'm a London-based independent consulting focussed on Systems Thinking, Intervention Theory and Lean / Kanban applied to IT businesses. I am a follower of Ohno, Deming, Seddon and Argyris."
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Lean Edge
by
Michael Ballé, H. Thomas Johnson, Daniel T. Jones, Art Smalley, Steven Spear, Jeffrey Liker, Mike Rother
"Lean management is a method to dramatically improve business performance by teaching people how to improve their own processes. The two main dimensions of lean management are continuous process improvement (going and seeing problems at the source, challenging operations and improving step by step) and respect for people (developing and engaging employees by developing teamwork, problem solving and respect for customers, employees and all other partners).
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The aim of the discussion [on the site] is to share different points of view and to collectively build a vision of lean management."
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Lean HR
"A discussion of using Lean tools and technology to drive change and streamline processes throughout the HR value stream." by Dwane Lay
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Not Running a Hospital
by
Paul Levy
Advocate for patient-driven care, eliminating preventable harm, transparency of clinical outcomes, and front-line driven process improvement.
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in2in
by
Bill Bellows
Offer an annual conference along with ongoing learning opportunities focused on the management ideas of Deming and Ackoff. Recommended
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Not Running a Hospital
by
Paul Levy
Author is a former hospital CEO and an "advocate for patient-driven care, eliminating preventable harm, transparency of clinical outcomes, and front-line driven process improvement."
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Manufacturing Leadership Center
by
Bill Waddell
Bill Waddell shares his knowledge, opinions, experience and ideas to point out the failures of companies, organizations, and individuals in the manufacturing industry while also lauding those that understand true excellence.
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Lean Impact
Lean Impact applies Lean Startup principles to nonprofits and the social sector.