INTERVIEW – In this Q&A, the CEO of a Ukrainian provider of equipment for stores shares how lean thinking has helped his company modernize its processes and engage its people.
INTERVIEW - What happens in an organization after a move from silos to value streams? In this video, a Value Stream Manager from a Brazilian cancer treatment center shares her experience.
INTERVIEW – At the European Lean Summit in Venice, our editor sat down with Italy’s lean CEO extraordinaire. His company, which serves the natural gas industry, has been on the journey for almost two decades.
INTERVIEW – At the recent European Lean Summit, we sat down with a senior executive from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to learn more about the company’s World Class Manufacturing approach.
INTERVIEW – A specialist in control solutions for air-conditioning, refrigeration and heating, Carel Industries first applied lean to R&D a decade ago, when few companies did. We asked them how their journey unfolded.
INTERVIEW – Software development company Theodo is a unique example of a digital company that has fully embraced lean and understood its potential. We caught up with their young CEO and CTO.
INTERVIEW – Catherine Chabiron sits down with Marc Onetto, a former executive with GE and Amazon, to discuss Jidoka and its profound effects on the way people work and think.
VIDEO INTERVIEW – Last year, the Lean Global Network launched an initiative to leverage the knowledge of our institutes to positively impact the healthcare industry. We caught up with the group in São Paulo this week.
INTERVIEW – Grupo Anima, a Brazilian private education organization with almost 100,000 high-school students enrolled, has revolutionized its culture since introducing lean. But it all started with one project…
INTERVIEW – For its 10th anniversary, the Lean Global Network went to Japan for a study mission. Our editor spoke with John Shook on a Shinkansen platform after four days in Toyota City and Nagoya.
INTERVIEW – Christleton Learning Trust in the UK is running several lean experiments across its three schools. We spoke with its CEO, who told us how coaching is supporting the transformation.
INTERVIEW – An organization in the San Francisco Bay Area is using coaching to increase its impact on the lives of foster youth. We had a chat with an extraordinary group of women to learn how they are doing it.
INTERVIEW – Italy-based precision machinery manufacturer Sisma has changed skin many times over the years. We sat down with its general manager to learn how the firm has been able to continuously innovate over the years.
INTERVIEW – It might seem a paradox that the world’s largest automaker is setting the pace for corporate social responsibility. Then again, Toyota never really followed the status quo. Kelly Singer interviews Toyota's Steve Hope.
INTERVIEW – Last month the Museum of Failure opened in Sweden. We caught up with the curator, who tells us what the museum is all about and why failure is now “cool”.
INTERVIEW – We speak with the National Petroleum Construction Company in the Emirates, learning how improving one of their critical processes is boosting the spread of lean thinking across the business.
PROFILE – Another month, another inspiring profile of a lean practitioner. We were impressed by Dr Billi’s deep conviction in the idea that, first of all, leaders must be learners. You will be too.
INTERVIEW – Business services company Dun & Bradstreet learned that the best way to tackle organizational challenges is using a combination of agile, lean startup and more traditional lean principles.
INTERVIEW – One of the world's largest dairy cooperatives, FrieslandCampina, has embarked on an ambitious global lean journey. Along the way, they found how critical leadership engagement is.
INTERVIEW – CI&T is a very successful Brazilian IT and software engineering company that has found in lean thinking a way to build on its agile work while better approaching leadership development.
PROFILE – Persevering, letting people inspire you and committing to continuous learning. These are the things you need to do to successfully embrace lean thinking and, it turns out, learn to play the violin.
INTERVIEW – With more and more organizations in the service sector adopting lean thinking to turn around their modus operandi, it only makes sense to highlight the struggles and misconceptions they still encounter.
INTERVIEW – Does your company feel like a sand castle? Do you struggle to sustain lean results? At the recent Lean Transformation Summit, the CEO of Lantech told us how the firm is using daily management to prevent “deterioration”.
INTERVIEW – After transitioning from agile to lean kanban, French insurance comparison company LesFurets.com has found in lean management an ever stronger foundation for value creation.
INTERVIEW – When we say that lean thinking can be applied to any human endeavor, we mean it. In this Q&A we learn about how knowledge sharing has been boosting the improvement journey of Dubai Police.
VIDEO - The author of Lean with Lean explains why he published a collection of papers rather than a business novel - his signature writing style - or a manual. Experience lean through the eyes of one of its greatest students... one a-ha moment at a time.
INTERVIEW – We meet one of this year's Lean IT Summit speakers to hear about her team’s effective approach to turning Nordstrom’s IT leaders into coaches and truly supporting the firm's lean transformation.
VIDEO – We constantly talk about the role of leadership, but perhaps we don't realize just how intertwined leadership transformation and business transformation really are. This short video discusses why.
INTERVIEW – The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) has been working with a lean-inspired improvement program that is gradually transforming the culture of the business – one creative idea at a time.
PROFILE – We may think it is cut and dried, but lean thinking is, in fact, full of paradoxes and trade-offs. According to Cécile Roche, learning to navigate them is one of the defining traits of a lean leader.
INTERVIEW – In this interview, Michael Ballé discusses lean thinking as a strategy, how to unearth problems, and the best (or only) way to initiate a lean transformation.
INTERVIEW – In this must-read Q&A, our editor sits down with lean guru John Shook to discuss the meaning of failure, the nature of innovation, and the resilience of our movement.
INTERVIEW – For the past year, agricultural equipment manufacturer John Deere Ibérica has worked to spread lean thinking to the supply chain. We met with them in Madrid to understand how they’re going about it.
INTERVIEW – Lean is making inroads in the Middle East! In this interview, a Senior VP of Gerab National Enterprises tells us how the company is using lean to reinvent itself as a project management firm.
PROFILE - When years of hard work to re-organize Patria's IT operations led to disappointing results, Sari Torkkola didn't throw in the towel. Instead, she started to build her department's understanding of lean.
INTERVIEW – Twenty years ago a book started a movement that is growing stronger every day and that has changed the world in many ways. We caught up with the authors to sneak a peek behind the scenes.
INTERVIEW – A program that aims to help disadvantaged school districts in Ohio used A3 thinking to teach principals how to scientifically solve problems together with their teachers. We met a principal and one of her teachers.
INTERVIEW – In this interview, the former CFO of uber-lean company Wiremold explains why our finance people hold the key to our transformation and gives us the lowdown on lean accounting.
INTERVIEW – Making lean thinking a bigger part of our university programs and education is the only way to ensure the methodology really comes to permeate our societies. But how can we ensure lean is taught in a way that makes sense?
INTERVIEW – Following two successful experiments with kanban boards, Jaguar Land Rover decided to extend the reach of its lean product development activities to include all new vehicle programs. Here’s how the story unfolded.
INTERVIEW – At the recent LPPDE event in England, Planet Lean editor Roberto Priolo sat with Takao Sakai to understand how Toyota approaches product and process development and how the Chief Engineer system works.
SEEN FROM OTHERS – Another interview in our series on how lean is perceived from the outside. This month we talk to an urban strategist to see if and how lean can contribute to transforming our cities.
PROFILE – Lean is spreading like wildfire across the Catalonian healthcare sector, following a do-it-yourself model unique to this part of the world. Our editor met one of the practitioners who are making it happen.
90-SECOND Q&A – At a recent summit, our editor Roberto Priolo sat down with Durward Sobek to discuss design thinking, obstacles to the application of lean in product and process development, and why LPPD in services is a bit different.
SEEN FROM OTHERS – In a new series, we ask experts from outside our community to share thoughts on lean-related topics. This month we meet an economist with an interesting take on the West’s productivity slowdown and its link to learning.
INTERVIEW – Ahead of this month’s Lean Experience Days in Holland, PL meets one of the speakers to learn about his research into the financial effects of lean transformations.
PROFILE – A commitment to learning and the humility to understand we never really know enough have led a Belgian mathematician to become a polyglot… and the CIO of Toyota Motor Europe.
INTERVIEW – An American group of restaurants is experimenting with the application of lean thinking in its kitchens and dining areas. Planet Lean had a word with the chefs to see what’s cooking.
INTERVIEW – At the recent Lean Transformation Summit in Las Vegas, our editor sat down with Nationwide to hear more about the mutual company’s application of lean thinking to IT and how they are working towards getting 9,000 people onboard.
PROFILE – This month we meet another member of the lean community, a true pioneer of lean thinking, who contributed to introducing the methodology in Australian cities and healthcare organizations.
INTERVIEW – We asked Greg Lane to reflect on his experience with lean transformations and to share his thoughts on the leadership behaviors that best support them.
INTERVIEW – Mike Hoseus reflects on his time at Toyota and on how the respect for people side of lean thinking is too often neglected and we tend to focus on continuous improvement only. The two must go together, or your house will collapse.
PROFILE – While pioneering the application of lean thinking in healthcare, Alice Lee realized that you should always approach teaching as you do problem solving: scientifically, situationally, and with the humility of a learner.
INTERVIEW – Last month we caught up with Toyota veteran Art Smalley in Las Vegas and discussed with him the role of leadership in a lean transformation and the four different types of problem solving he talks about in his new book.
INTERVIEW – Planet Lean speaks with David Mann about the importance of combining the lean production and the lean management systems – the tools and the culture – to create sustainable results.
PROFILE – It isn’t every day that you come across a hospital CEO coaching people on A3s and following his own standard work. So when you do, it’s important to share their story. This month we profile the CEO of a Brazilian cancer treatment center.
INTERVIEW – Planet Lean talks with Drew Locher about bringing change to an office setting, lean in small- and medium-sized firms and why improving and managing go hand in hand.
PROFILE – Lean leaders are often tempted to jump in and fix the problems they see. Julie McGrory is successfully transforming the culture of a large and traditional government organization by learning to take a step back and letting people take the lead.
INTERVIEW – At the recent UK Lean Summit, we met the Head of Student Services of an English high school. We asked her about the interesting work the school is doing to improve the delivery of education to students with special needs using lean thinking.
INTERVIEW – At the recent UK Lean Summit, Ian Hurst and Keith Edwards of the Toyota Lean Management Centre ran an insightful workshop on standard work. We sat down with them to discuss standardization, respect for people and waste elimination.
PROFILE - Three decades in Toyota South Africa and an ability to see the value stream as a whole are helping Terry O'Donoghue, COO of Halfway Toyota, to bring lean thinking to a chain of car dealerships.
INTERVIEW – At the recent Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit in Brussels, Planet Lean editor Roberto Priolo sat down with John Toussaint to discuss the state of lean thinking in healthcare, its challenges and its opportunities.
INTERVIEW – Planet Lean interviews Silvia Cespa of Italy’s Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, a bank that boasts one of the most advanced IT departments in Europe. How did it get there? Through a six-year transformation towards lean banking.
PROFILE – Before anything else, a good lean leader must be open to changing and continuously running experiments – something Christophe Riboulet, CEO of a small French manufacturer, knows quite a bit about.
INTERVIEW – Planet Lean speaks with telecommunications company Telefónica about the organization's attempt to apply lean startup principles in its R&D department.
INTERVIEW – When we think of innovation we rarely think of government, and yet the public sector is in desperate need to modernize and improve. Pierre Pezziardi is on a mission to bring innovation to the French government.
PROFILE – In this new section, Planet Lean features some of the most inspirational lean leaders out there. For the first profile, we have selected James Hereford, a former high school teacher who is now leading his third healthcare transformation.
INTERVIEW – At the recent European Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit, we sat down with Helen Zak for a few minutes to discuss the state of change in the healthcare sector.
INTERVIEW – At the recent Lean IT Summit, Planet Lean spoke to BlaBlaCar, a Paris-based company that has managed to keep the startup way of thinking alive in the face of the hypergrowth it experienced in the past four years.
INTERVIEW – The CIO of a French pharmaceutical company gives us a sneak peek of her presentation at the upcoming Lean IT Summit, focused on using the obeya to change the IT department.
INTERVIEW – PL sits down with a consultant and a manager from the St Elisabeth hospital in the Netherlands to talk about the organization’s “loving care” approach to treating patients.
INTERVIEW – During a chat with Planet Lean, Darril Wilburn explains why courage and humility are necessary elements to establish a culture based on continuous improvement.
INTERVIEW – How many times have you been asked, “What is the ROI of lean?” Jean Cunningham provides her insight to help you measure the financial impact of your lean improvements.
INTERVIEW – Dan Jones will be a keynote speaker at this year’s Lean IT Summit in Paris. In this interview, he gives us a sneak peek of what he is going to talk about.
INTERVIEW - The historical city of Amersfoort in the Netherlands has introduced lean thinking and practice in local government to provide better and faster services to its citizens.
INTERVIEW - Are you a manager who needs to brush up on lean but has little time to do it? A new book by Cécile Roche comes to the rescue: A Little Lean Guide for the Use of Managers.
INTERVIEW - Like many other improvement methodologies, LeanUX shares a lot of principles with traditional lean. Yet, the two communities don’t know a lot about each other. We ask an expert to bridge the gap.
INTERVIEW – PL speaks to one of America's leading experts on the Toyota Production System about Toyota's unique approach to integrating product development with all other functions in the business.
INTERVIEW – At the recent Lean Transformation Summit in New Orleans, we sat down with Richard Sheridan of Menlo Innovations to discuss the ground-breaking concept of joy in the workplace.
INTERVIEW – Overburdened and worn out? Visualizing your tasks using Personal Kanban can help you make sense of a busy schedule and reduce your stress, says Jim Benson.
INTERVIEW – Lean for social good may sound new to many, but to the CEO of one of America’s largest food banks, the partnership between her organization and Toyota to defeat hunger in the Big Apple seems just natural.
INTERVIEW - What do the United States Army’s Special Forces unit and Toyota have in common? To find out, we spoke to the Green Berets’ former Director of Training at the LEI summit in New Orleans.
INTERVIEW - Eric Ethington shares what he has learned about lean thinking implementations during his 30-year career holding positions at General Motors, Delphi and Textron.
VIDEO INTERVIEW – Hierarchical organization, goodbye! Embracing servant leadership and a horizontal reporting structure, Spotify is redefining the idea of company.
INTERVIEW – Tom and Mary Poppendieck sit down with Roberto Priolo and discuss what makes product organizations successful today and where lean software development is headed.
VIDEO INTERVIEW - Planet Lean speaks with Jeff Sutherland, one of the inventors of scrum software development, about the evolution of this Agile framework and its relationship with lean.
VIDEO INTERVIEW - At last month's UK Lean Summit, we sat down with Dan Jones and Jim Womack, founding fathers of lean thinking, to discuss the evolution, current state and future of the methodology.
VIDEO INTERVIEW - At the Lean IT Summit, we spoke with Amazon Web Services to understand what type of flexible and scalable IT infrastructure allows organizations to be innovative without breaking the bank.
VIDEO INTERVIEW - We spoke with Toyota Motor Europe's CIO at the Lean IT Summit about hoshin and IT, the application of the agile methodology, and the power of coaching.
INTERVIEW – We speak with Sérgio Caracciolo of General Motors do Brasil about the carmaker’s approach to lean, its struggles, and its lessons learned.
INTERVIEW - In our search for the perfect solution, we often seem to ignore the user's needs. Jeff Gothelf explains why this is nonsense and what lies at the heart of the Lean UX software development methodology.
INTERVIEW - We caught up with LEI’s Senior Advisor, Jim Morgan after his plenary talk at the Lean Summit in São Paulo last month and got him to answer a few questions about product development and lean management.
INTERVIEW - Lean manufacturing principles, successful training programs and the involvement of management in daily continuous improvement are transforming Brazilian automotive supplier ZEN.
INTERVIEW - Planet Lean speaks with Constantin May, Academic Director of the CEPTM institute at Germany’s Ansbach University, which organized the first Lean Educator Conference in Europe in co-operation with LGN.
INTERVIEW – Brian Swain, Director of the Lean Construction Institute UK, has supported some of the largest construction projects in Britain, including London’s Olympic Village. Here he talks about the evolution of lean in the industry.
INTERVIEW - The General Manager of a Delphi plant in Hungary talks about the lean transformation the site went through and the challenges automotive suppliers face in this day and age.
INTERVIEW - What lies at the core of kaizen activity? How has the concept of kaizen evolved over time? Planet Lean’s editor Roberto Priolo discusses these and other topics with kaizen expert Mark Hamel.
INTERVIEW - As the use of lean continues to grow in the service industry, questions abound on how this sector can use the principles and practices effectively.
INTERVIEW - Pierre Masai, CIO of Toyota Motor Europe, discusses IT across the company's operations in Europe, highlighting the importance of people engagement and experiments.
INTERVIEW – Planet Lean meets LEGO’s Ilona Takács to learn how the toy manufacturer looked at its corporate values to built a new, super-lean factory in eastern Hungary.
