lean learning

Daily management and experimentation in a crisis

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FeaturesApr 6, 2020
José Roberto Ferro
FEATURE – As businesses struggle with disruption and an uncertain future in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, the author suggests they turn to lean daily management and get into an experimentation mindset.

Immunity

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Case studiesMar 19, 2020
Sergio Ferigo, Gianni Lorenzani and Matteo Consagra
CASE STUDY – This Italian manufacturer has found in lean a way to ensure business continuity and provide support to a distraught workforce in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak.

Enhancing your gemba skills

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FeaturesFeb 24, 2020
Michael Ballé
FEATURE – Michael Ballé shares a few tricks he uses to escape his default thinking and ensure he makes the most of every gemba walk he goes on.

Predictable vs unpredictable work

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A common problem that practitioners trying to bring lean to services encounter is the difficulty to identify “the work” – whereas in manufacturing the product is in front of everyone’s eyes, in service organizations it is often hidden behind paperwork or a computer screen. Once the work is clearly visible, however, the opportunities for improvement are plentiful. To date, we have seen thousands of organizations striving to lean out the service they provide customers: from restaurants chains in the United States and China to a group of bakeries in Barcelona, from call centers to hotels, the application of lean services ideas can have an extraordinary impact on our economies. Especially if we consider that the service industry accounts for more than three-fifths of the global GDP and employs more than one-third of the global workforce.

Lean thinking is naturally a fit for the service industry, because of its focus on constantly delighting customers and on providing them with value-adding products."
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FeaturesFeb 6, 2020
Dave Brunt
FEATURE – It is a common misconception that our work is too unpredictable to fit into a standardized approach. The author debunks this myth. 

The community and the individual

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Opinion piecesDec 5, 2019
Peter Willats
COLUMN – As individuals, how do we relate to the Lean Community? And what motivates us to stubbornly continue down the improvement path, often against all odds?

What does learning look like at Toyota?

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InterviewsSep 23, 2019
Martyn Hayward and Yian Baty
INTERVIEW – Toyota’s approach to developing capabilities and its focus on life-long learning are inspirational. But how do people at Toyota actually learn?

What is lean learning?

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FeaturesSep 9, 2019
Tony Lamberton
FEATURE – How does lean apply to learning? The author reflects on the lean transformation his schools are undergoing and on its practical implications on students, staff and leaders.

Lean is an educational system

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FeaturesAug 27, 2019
Sandrine Olivencia
FEATURE – In this compelling read, the author discusses lean thinking as a system for learning that challenges our assumptions and tells us why blindly applying “best practices” takes us nowhere.

Leveraging tech to improve education

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InterviewsAug 13, 2019
Priya Lakhani
INTERVIEW – In a chat with our editor, Priya Lakhani explains how technology can be used to understand a student’s unique learning pathway and design teaching accordingly.

The role of a lean educator

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FeaturesAug 8, 2019
Monica Rossi
FEATURE – What does it really mean to teach lean? The author reflects on this question and shares a few tips on how to successfully engage learners in different environments. 

A sense of heritage in an uncertain world

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FeaturesJul 30, 2019
Catherine Chabiron
FEATURE – In a market where products become obsolete very fast, this Toyota supplier has learned the importance of staying true to its heritage and developing know-how and people’s capabilities.

Introducing the Toyota Flow System

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FeaturesJul 9, 2019
Nigel Thurlow, John R. Turner and Brian Rivera
FEATURE – In the age of complexity and disruption, flowing value to customers as quickly as possible is critical. The new Toyota Flow System strives to address this issue. 

My father is my sensei

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FeaturesJul 4, 2019
Michael Ballé
FEATURE – In this intimate account, the author reflects on the role of a lean sensei by looking back at what he’s learned from his own… his father.

Lean learning, learning lean

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FeaturesJun 13, 2019
Dave Brunt
FEATURE – What can the world of lean and the world of education learn from one another? The author reflects on the synergies between these two realities.

Learning at takt time in Thales

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    string(1593) "The term “lean production” refers to the set of tools and techniques used to streamline and improve a company’s production system. With its roots in the Toyota Production System, lean production aims to boost productivity while reducing waste. Companies that successfully embrace lean production methods can achieve impressive improvements in their performance. The superiority of a lean production system was first identified by Womack and Jones during their research on Japanese carmakers. Initially, it was believed that lean was only applicable to production, whereas today we know those principles can be applied in any sector.

With more and more organizations (not just manufacturing firms) turning to automation to try and solve every-day problems, lean production offers an approach that gives the operators and their work the dignity they deserve. This idea is best expressed by the concept of the andon, a cord hanging above lean production lines that operators can pull whenever they encounter a problem they can’t solve right way (this is the base of the fundamental lean principles of jidoka, “automation with a human touch”). Lean is clearly an alternative to reckless management that considers people as mere capital.

The main characteristics of a lean production system are the fact the different stages of production happen in a sequence without interruptions (known as flow) and that the pace of production is set by the customers (pull)."
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InterviewsJun 11, 2019
Norbert Dubost
INTERVIEW – A former VP of Operations from Thales tells Catherine Chabiron how he and his team turned around their department by committing to lean thinking and focusing on people development every day.

The Sunday-night barista

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    string(1637) "While lean government and lean healthcare technically fall under this category, we consider lean service organizations to be those operating in areas like call centers, retail, hotels, restaurants, offices, banking, and so on. In such environments, there is a direct interaction with the customer, which should be seen as an opportunity to get real-time feedback on our service rather than a nuisance we have to deal with (if you have ever spoken with a customer care representative, you know what this means).

A common problem that practitioners trying to bring lean to services encounter is the difficulty to identify “the work” – whereas in manufacturing the product is in front of everyone’s eyes, in service organizations it is often hidden behind paperwork or a computer screen. Once the work is clearly visible, however, the opportunities for improvement are plentiful. To date, we have seen thousands of organizations striving to lean out the service they provide customers: from restaurants chains in the United States and China to a group of bakeries in Barcelona, from call centers to hotels, the application of lean services ideas can have an extraordinary impact on our economies. Especially if we consider that the service industry accounts for more than three-fifths of the global GDP and employs more than one-third of the global workforce.

Lean thinking is naturally a fit for the service industry, because of its focus on constantly delighting customers and on providing them with value-adding products."
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FeaturesApr 30, 2019
Karen Gaudet
FEATURE – The author looks back at her time at Starbucks Coffee Company and reflects on the role of leadership in facilitating the spread of lean thinking across the organization.

Down the right track

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FeaturesApr 16, 2019
Catherine Chabiron
NOTES FROM THE GEMBA – The author goes back to a train maintenance center she visited two years ago and finds an organization striving to learn continuously.

Teaching A3 skills to medical students

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    string(1608) "Lean thinking may have been born in Toyota in the 1950s and 1960s, but it wasn’t until after the year 2000 that a few hospitals began to explore its application to the healthcare industry (lean healthcare). These pioneering organizations came together to share their stories at the first Global Lean Healthcare Summit in the UK in 2007, which in turn triggered many more experiments around the world. Since then, interest has kept growing.

Some fifteen years on, we have hundreds of examples to learn from, from clinics and departments through to entire hospitals and even whole hospital systems. Not all early experiments succeeded, and we are still a long way from making lean a widely recognized way of working across the industry.
Healthcare providers around the world still face huge challenges, as ageing populations and unhealthy lifestyles boost the demand for healthcare faster than the growth of incomes and tax revenues from the middle classes. At the same time, the quality of care has not improved as much as the quality of other services in the economy, which is why more and more healthcare organizations are turning to lean.

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FeaturesMar 26, 2019
Dr Jack Billi
FEATURE – Problem solving is a fundamental part of being a leader, which is what led this medical school in the United States to include A3 thinking in its curriculum.