Decisions: From Crisis and Chaos to Calm

How is it that some leaders have a way to bring calm to crisis, chaos, and conflict, weeding out fact from fiction, and somehow setting the path straight for others to follow? The answer is quite simple, they have the tools and ability to make effective decisions efficiently. I recognize that very few, if any, problems can truly be solved […]

Are You Suffering from Fragmentation?

When Toyota arrived on the North American manufacturing scene, automakers were introduced to many of Toyota’s best practices including the Toyota Production System (TPS) and the well-known “Toyota Way”.  Since that time, Toyota’s best practices have been introduced to numerous other industries and service providers with varying degrees of success. In simple terms, Toyota’s elusive goal of single piece flow […]

Hanging from a thread – Lean Healthcare

Background It seems that Lean Healthcare is getting a lot of exposure here as of late.  I will qualify this by saying “in practice” rather than “name”.  The Toronto Star published yet another article, Sunnybrook cuts wait for prostate diagnosis down to 72 hours, that once again demonstrates that improvements can be made if we put our minds to it. […]

Lean – Walk and Talk

In my article “Waste:  The Devil is in the Details“, I discussed the importance of paying attention to the details.  From a company or personal perspective, the underlying theme to identify waste (or opportunity) is to be continually cognizant of what it is we’re doing and asking “Why?” I have continually stressed the importance of conducting process reviews right where the action is.  It seems […]

What did you expect? Benchmarking and Decisions – for better or worse.

What did you expect? Benchmarking & Decisions – for better or worse I recognize that benchmarking is not a new concept.  In business, we have learned to appreciate the value of benchmarking at the “macro level” through our deliberate attempts to establish a relative measure of performance, improvement, and even for competitor analysis.  Advertisers often use benchmarking as an integral component of their marketing strategy. […]

Integrated Waste: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Admittedly, it has been a while since I checked a shampoo bottle for directions, however, I do recall a time in my life reading:  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.  Curiously, they don’t say when or how many times the process needs to be repeated. Perhaps someone can educate me as to why it is necessary to repeat the process at all – other than “daily”.  I […]

Scorecards and Dashboards

I recently published, Urgent -> The Cost of Things Gone Wrong, where I expressed concern for dashboards that are attempting to do too much.  In this regard, they become more of a distraction instead of serving the intended purpose of helping you manage your business or processes.  To be fair, there are at least two (2) levels of data management […]

Achieve Sustainability Through Integration

It’s no secret that lean is much more than a set of tools and best practices designed to eliminate waste and reduce variance in our operations.  I contend that lean is defined by a culture that embraces the principles on which lean is founded.  An engaged lean culture is evidenced by the continuing development and integration of improved systems, methods, […]

Discover Toyota’s Best Practice

I have always been impressed by Toyota’s inherent ability to adapt, improve, and embrace change even during the harshest times.  This innate ability is a signature trait of Toyota’s culture and has been the topic of intense study and research for many years. How is it that Toyota continues to thrive regardless of the circumstances they encounter?  While numerous authors […]

OEE: Planned Downtime and Availability

As a core metric, Overall Equipment Effectiveness or OEE has been adopted by many companies to improve operations and optimize the capacity of existing equipment.  Having completed several on site assessments over the past few months we have learned that almost all organizations are measuring performance and quality in real-time, however, the availability component of OEE is still a mystery […]