lean process

Harada-san and the steps to better Jidoka

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FeaturesMar 23, 2020

Toshiko Narusawa, Joe Lee and John Shook

FEATURE – In the first piece of a series on Takehiko Harada’s contribution to TPS, the authors discuss the Nagara Switch and how it helps to achieve better Jidoka.

Sorting out sourcing

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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.

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FeaturesFeb 20, 2020

Carolina Moraes, Priscilla Ribeiro, Alaine Soares, and Tatiane Zutin

FEATURE – The Sourcing team at insurance company SulAmérica tells us about how they were able to transform the process in their department in order to become more efficient in dealing with their workload.

Learning to be lean chameleons

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FeaturesFeb 13, 2020

Teri Laeder

FEATURE – In this candid, personal account, the author shares her experience as a lean coach, her challenges and success, and how she adapts to different situations.

A 15-year journey of people engagement

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Case studiesJan 30, 2020

Tom Root

CASE STUDY – Here’s the story of a mature lean company from Michigan. The author tells us about Zingerman’s Mail Order’s lean transformation, their challenges and their successes.

Half the bad, double the good

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    string(1594) "Manufacturing is where the lean movement originated from. For their MIT research in the late 1980s (which resulted in the 1990 seminal book The Machine the Changed the World), Jim Womack and Dan Jones identified a set of principles and techniques that made Japanese carmakers far more productive than their Western competitors.

The superiority of the Toyota Production System is now a recognized fact (Toyota has been profitable every year but one, for half a century), which means that today most manufacturing organizations around the world practice lean manufacturing thinking to some extent. The prevalence of this alternative way of thinking and managing in the manufacturing sector often generates confusion in other industries, in which people’s first reaction to improvement attempts is the now proverbial “We don’t make cars. Lean is a manufacturing thing.”

When applied to manufacturing, lean tools like heijunka, SMED or Kanban cards allow for the optimization of production processes and the systematic elimination of waste (in its three incarnations of muda, muri and mura – respectively, non-value-adding work, overburden and unevenness). These happen by implementing the fundamental lean principles of pull and flow. However, it has now been proved that the principles characterizing lean manufacturing are universally applicable. They work in any sector and they apply to any kind of work – even though at times they require some adjustment."
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Case studiesJan 20, 2020

Eivind Reke and Kenneth Gilje

CASE STUDY – The story of this Norwegian window and door manufacturer shows how a deep and ongoing commitment to a lean transformation can help a company thrive against all odds.

Lean thinking, better teaching

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FeaturesMay 9, 2019

René Aernoudts

FEATURE – A school board in Holland is discovering the potential of lean thinking and improving its processes to tackle the overburdening of teachers.

Lean as a two-step engine

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    string(1378) "The idea of “lean management” can refer to both individual managerial behaviors and, more in general, the set of principles and practices characterizing the adoption of lean thinking in an organization.

In the first case, lean management is closer in meaning to the idea of “lean leadership” and entails the development of behaviors that foster continuous improvement at the front line, such as respect for people, asking questions (rather than providing answers), going to see to really understand the work and the causes of problems, and scientific problem solving. In the second instance, lean management describes the lean philosophy more in general.

In its more general meaning, lean management – or lean thinking, if you prefer – derives from the Toyota Production System and is now recognized as a superior management approach that, through continuous improvement, customer focus, teamwork and relentless people engagement, leads to great results in terms of quality, performance, delivery, and cost. The promise of lean management is to create the most value for customers using the least possible amount of resources. As an approach to running a business, it brings benefits to all parties involved, from customers to employees, suppliers to wider society.

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FeaturesMar 14, 2019

Michael Ballé & Nicolas Chartier

FEATURE – One of the things making lean thinking so hard to explain in general terms is its dual nature as both an organizational and managerial approach. The authors explain how to handle this tension.

Inventory reduction and pulled supply in a Brazilian factory

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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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FeaturesNov 9, 2017

Ricardo Avila, Douglas Agassi & Alexandre Cardoso

FEATURE – Inventory reduction is critical to waste elimination. Yet, many are reluctant to do it, fearing demand variability and production instability will neutralize their efforts. Grupo Sabó's story proves otherwise.

Kaizen and improved maintenance in a Turkish mine

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Case studiesNov 7, 2017

Selçuk Turan & Hüsrev Yaman

CASE STUDY – Over the past four years, by developing its kaizen capabilities and crafting a better approach to maintenance, a Turkish gold mine has significantly reduced its extraction costs.

Growing car sales by 400% in a dealership using lean

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FeaturesOct 4, 2017

Calvin Govender, Charmaine Lategan & Dale Thomas

FEATURE – For the first article in our series on the Halfway transformation, we asked the Sales team to tell us about how they apply lean to selling cars in a challenging social context.

How lean coaching changed the culture of a restaurant chain

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FeaturesAug 23, 2017

Jeff Zhou

FEATURE – An approach based on coaching and experiments is transforming the way restaurant chain Xibei works with its people to improve service and dishes: the story of Chef Liang and his Kongfu fish.

Lean and sustainable fashion meet at Eileen Fisher

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FeaturesJul 6, 2017

Johanne Read and Tess De Mesa with Alice Lee

FEATURE – Designing beautiful work helps design beautiful clothes. Here’s the story of how women’s clothing brand Eileen Fisher found in lean a way to support its environmental sustainability strategy.

Adopting lean principles to speed up blood donation

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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.

Historically, lean healthcare ideas have been applied in large hospitals, but in the past few years we have started to see the philosophy adopted in earnest in many smaller organizations following a do-it-yourself approach that has generated many positive benefits. An impressive example is the Consorci Sanitari del Garraf near Barcelona."
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FeaturesMar 10, 2017

Morena Venturini & Francesca Marchi

FEATURE – In the second article of our series written by the front-line staff of Siena University Hospital, we learn how the lean principles of pull and flow have transformed the blood donating process.

The first steps of a Paris hospital towards lean healthcare

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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.

Historically, lean healthcare ideas have been applied in large hospitals, but in the past few years we have started to see the philosophy adopted in earnest in many smaller organizations following a do-it-yourself approach that has generated many positive benefits. An impressive example is the Consorci Sanitari del Garraf near Barcelona."
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FeaturesJan 13, 2017

Catherine Chabiron

NOTES FROM THE GEMBA – On this gemba walk in the cardiology department of a Parisian hospital, the author discovers how the team is changing its internal dynamics and processes to make lean their way of thinking.

Dedicated green and red equipment for different products

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FeaturesJan 11, 2017

Ian Glenday

FEATURE – If we have high-volume (green) and low-volume (red) items in our production schedule, doesn’t it make sense to also have dedicated green and red equipment whenever possible?

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