lean strategy

The role of HR in a lean transformation

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FeaturesJul 6, 2020
Severino Abad
FEATURE – The author outlines the role of HR in a lean transformation and explains why our ability to successfully turn around a business largely depends on activities in which HR participates.

Lean innovations for restaurants

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FeaturesJun 22, 2020
Alessandro Martemucci
FEATURE – The restaurant business has always been tough, but Covid-19 is now presenting it with new challenges. The author shares a few lean practices that can help restaurants develop competitiveness.

Eight practices to put more green into lean

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FeaturesMay 25, 2020
John S. Hamalian
FEATURE – The planet is warming at an unsustainable rate, pollution is increasing, wildlife populations and arable land areas have plummeted, and our oceans are filling with plastic. Can Lean Thinking help?

Anticipating the Covid-19 storm

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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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FeaturesMay 15, 2020
Catherine Chabiron
NOTES FROM THE (VIRTUAL) GEMBA – In the last of her series of virtual gemba walks, the author learns how a hospital in the Caribbean island of Martinique relied on Lean Thinking in its fight against the Coronavirus.

Facing the crisis with an appetite for improvement

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FeaturesMay 6, 2020
Catherine Chabiron
NOTES FROM THE VIRTUAL GEMBA – Despite a 40% drop in sales and the looming prospect of having to furlough part of its staff, this French company is finding in lean manufacturing an ally to fight the current crisis.

Lean thinking for more resilient supply chains

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FeaturesMay 4, 2020
Alvair Silveira Torres Jr.
FEATURE – The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed all the shortcomings of our current supply chains. Lean Thinking can make them more agile, aligned and adaptive.

Staying ready in uncertain times

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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).

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FeaturesApr 30, 2020
Catherine Chabiron
NOTES FROM THE (VIRTUAL) GEMBA – Throughout the lockdown, this car-selling business has never lost its focus on people development. The author learns how this approach is helping the firm make the most of the crisis.

The lean playbook

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FeaturesApr 28, 2020
Michael Ballé
FEATURE – The author reflects on how lean organizations are reacting to the Covid-19 crisis and discusses the tough questions they are asking themselves.

The world after Covid-19

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FeaturesApr 17, 2020
Dan Jones
FEATURE – Looking to the future, the author encourages us to challenge obsolete ideas and seize the opportunity provided by Lean Thinking to make the world a better place for all.

Learning fast in the crisis

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FeaturesApr 15, 2020
Catherine Chabiron
NOTES FROM THE (VIRTUAL) GEMBA – This small manufacturer is relying on Lean Thinking to keep the business running during the Covid-19 crisis, overcome the disruption in its supply chain, and even innovate.

Hoshin kanri in a picture

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FeaturesMar 9, 2020
Nestor Gavilan
FEATURE – Hoshin is a powerful management practice that aligns the work at different levels to a company’s strategic goals. The author offers a one-page visual summary.

The gift that keeps on giving

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FeaturesFeb 27, 2020
Karen Gaudet
FEATURE – The benefits of establishing a lean operating system will support the growth and success of a business in the long term, says Karen Gaudet looking back at her experience at Starbucks.

The Crab Method

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FeaturesFeb 17, 2020
Cevdet Özdoğan
FEATURE – We hear it time and time again: in a lean transformation, middle management is the biggest hindrance to change. The author explains his strategy to win them over.

Gap analysis, made simple

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FeaturesFeb 10, 2020
Nestor Gavilan
FEATURE – The difficulty of sustaining results often stems from our inability to monitor the KPIs that truly matter and to focus on business priorities. The author suggests a hands-on approach to strategy deployment.

Half the bad, double the good

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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.

A year in lean articles

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FeaturesDec 23, 2019
Roberto Priolo
FEATURE – As 2019 draws to an end, our editor looks back at best lean articles of the year and tells us why Lean Thinking should give us hope for the future.

What is hoshin kanri?

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FeaturesDec 19, 2019
Roberto Priolo
ROUNDUP – In the last roundup on lean tools and concepts of the year, our editor collects and curates the best articles on strategy deployment (hoshin kanri).

A journey of mind-blowing improvement

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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.”

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Case studiesOct 3, 2019
Sergio Ferigo
CASE STUDY – Seven years ago, this Italian manufacturer ran an experiment to reduce inventory in its warehouse. Today, lean thinking permeates every aspect of life at FPZ.