WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – The author discusses the benefits that the many family businesses making up our economies can harness from embracing lean management.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – As tariffs spread, the author explains where forcing production to move overnight is wasteful, particularly for lean producers.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – The author visits a company that has sustained lean for a decade. In trying to understand how they did it, he finds how fundamentally the management system has changed.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – The author visits a company that has sustained lean for a decade. In trying to understand how they did it, he finds how fundamentally the management system has changed.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – What does a lean employer look like? In this month’s column, the author reflects on the long-term commitment to employees a company engaged in lean thinking should make.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – This month, the author looks at the production line, a century-old idea that still fascinates us, reflecting on how lean thinking has changed it.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – In his first column of 2018, the author looks at one of the most talked about companies in the world, Tesla, from a lean point of view.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – Ahead of the holidays, for his last column of the year, the author reminds us of the power of sharing. Go out and spread the lean word!
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – 5S seems to mean different things to different people. What’s common, however, is the difficulty to sustain it. The author offers a few tips.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – Toyota’s commitment to employees reminds us that it is impossible to tap into the full potential of lean without providing people with stable, gratifying employment.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – Last week, during a study mission in Japan, the Lean Global Network visited Toyota. Here, Jim shares his thoughts on what we saw and learned.
YOKOTEN – Lean has changed the world in many ways, even though the original vision of its founding fathers has failed to materialize. Jim discusses why, as a movement, we shouldn’t give up and review our strategy instead.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – The author looks at hoshin planning, A3 thinking and daily management as the three key elements of a lean management system, and highlights the related behaviors that will allow lean to thrive.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – After a road trip from Boston to Philadelphia driving Toyota’s hydrogen fuel-cell Mirai, Jim reflects on lean and green and why the two are not necessarily the same.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – On October 3, Toyota will cease its manufacturing operations in Australia, but the way it is managing the transition - in the leanest way possible - holds great lessons for us all.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – As the Lean Enterprise Institute turns 20, its founder provides us with a bit of hansei on where we are and where we are going next as a community, and on what challenges we might tackle.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – Somehow surprisingly, management schools teach very little about management, and when they do all learning is classroom-based. Instead, they should go to the gemba.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – Effective daily management is still hard to achieve for most organizations. But until line managers start tackling problems first hand as they emerge, rather than deferring and delegating them, basic stability will remain a mirage.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – Between the upcoming Brexit negotiations and the protectionist stance of the new US Administration, trade is making the headlines once again. But what would trade look like in a world of lean organizations?
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – Small firms represent the backbone of the economy, and there is no doubt lean can help them improve and grow – by making the jobs they offer great. Without it, countries won't be great either.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – As a first instinct, most of us tend to provide answers and solutions rather than ask questions. In this month's Yokoten, Jim Womack provides advice on how to fight this behavior and become a coach.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – The rise of the robots may still belong in sci-fi books, but there is no doubt that work as we know it is fading away. What is the role of lean thinking in this world of drones and driverless taxis?
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – The author reflects on how the legacy of Taylor and Ford still poses challenges to the lean movement, and why critics should move past a simplistic view of lean as mere standardization.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – In our lean journeys we spend so much time on improvement (kaizen) and innovation (kaikaku) that we often forget to address the issue of how to maintain our gains. Do you know iji? Perhaps you should.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – How it is that some ideas and innovations spread like wildfire while others are slower to take roots? It is clear that lean thinking belongs to the latter category, but how can we speed up its diffusion?
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – Lean in agriculture might still be in its infancy, but there is a small farm in Indiana that is already proving how valuable lean principles and techniques can be to this industry.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – In this month’s column, Jim shares an insightful analysis of the trends and dynamics of today’s automotive industry and looks at the opportunity that lean has to facilitate its next transformation.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – As a new age in aerospace dawns, with a need to move from huge and bespoke designs to affordable and high-volume production, lean thinking has a key role to play. But will the industry listen?
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN - Kaizen or kaikaku? This is the problem. When it comes to the pace of change, should we carry on with small, incremental improvements or aim at more revolutionary changes instead?
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN – Last month nations signed a greenhouse gas emissions deal – on paper, an insurance policy against climate change. But if action is to follow promises, the cost of the insurance premium, as perceived by voters and governments, must be lowered. Lean thinking can help.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN - If you are going to succeed at one of your resolutions for 2016, let it be that of always starting off a lean transformation with a deep analysis of the work at a single point in your organization, and then escalating your efforts to reach all the factors influencing the work.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – If truly embraced, lean thinking sustains and (in the long run) even creates jobs, but if a transformation is to last these jobs must be “good,” says Jim Womack.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – On October 10, 1990 the book that introduced lean thinking to the world was published. Twenty-five years after Machine, one of the authors reflects on what the lean movement has achieved and on what is slowing it down.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – The Volkswagen “defeat device” scandal is the latest example of a company that has chosen to focus on growth rather than the customer. What can we learn from this, and what should we do when such a shift takes place?
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – The sharing economy came with a very “lean” promise – underutilized resources made available to those who need them for a reasonable fee – but not all that glitters is gold.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN - When managed poorly and tied to the wrong performance metrics, financial rewards can seriously damage your organization, Jim Womack warns in his latest column.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN - Senior leadership must learn to understand the work if they are to move away from the mindless metrics that lead managers to "game" numbers or to shift responsibility on to other departments.
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN - Given the name of this column, it only makes sense to analyze the word yokoten. So, how can we effectively help others to apply what we learn at the gemba? What makes yokoten successful?
WOMACK'S YOKOTEN - Every practitioner has encountered employee resistance to lean at some point. Here's a few tips on how to win over naysayers and perhaps even turn them into some of your biggest supporters.
