All Features
Kevin Meyer
Changing an organization’s structure seems to be the common knee-jerk response to internal issues. My prior company embarked on a reorganization to eliminate arbitrary site- and function-based structures so that we could align around corporatewide value creation processes.
During the…
Mike Richman
During the Nov. 3, 2017, episode of QDL, we (figuratively) traveled the globe to bring you quality information. Let’s take a closer look:
“‘Made in Japan’ Falls from Grace Amid Scandals, Systematic Flaws in Manufacturing Industry” Kobe Steel is the latest Japanese manufacturer to admit to…
Tonianne DeMaria
Lean says: Map the value stream. Your brain says: I’ve been doing this so long, it’s become second nature to me. The steps are right here—in my head.
What’s at play here: • Illusion of transparency • Curse of knowledge/information imbalance • Status quo thinking • Groupthink/false consensus…
Harish Jose
Today I will look at epistemology at the gemba. Epistemology is the part of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge. It tries to answer the questions, “How do we know things, and what are the limits of our knowledge?” I have been learning about epistemology for a while now, and I find…
Bruce Hamilton
The first two books I ever read about lean were Zero Inventories (McGraw-Hill, 1983) by Robert Hall, and Japanese Manufacturing Techniques (Free Press, 1982) by Richard Schonberger. In 1985, these definitive academic works were among just a few sources of information about what was then referred…
Jun Nakamuro
The world first became aware of the Toyota Production System (TPS) when Taiichi Ohno published a book about his groundbreaking efforts at Toyota. It was published in Japan in 1978. The Japanese version of his book wasn’t translated into English until 1988. Because 10 years had passed, this…
Matthew Barsalou
Quality tools can serve many purposes in problem solving. They may be used to assist in decision making, selecting quality improvement projects, and in performing root cause analysis. They provide useful structure to brainstorming sessions, for communicating information, and for sharing ideas with…
Jeff Dewar
This photo shows the Milky Way (from the Latin via lactea), part of our galaxy as seen from Earth. It’s a barred spiral galaxy, essentially a flat disk of at least 100 billion stars. Our galaxy is just one of about 400 billion in the universe, only three of which can be seen by the naked eye.…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
When James Womack and Daniel Jones published Lean Thinking in 1996, they offered the world a book that collected the core principles of a key operational model. Though not stated directly, they created a profile for the Toyota Production System (TPS) that was revelatory and highly useful, adding a…
Bob Emiliani
I recently posted a version of the graphic below with the caption: “Not perfect, but close. It’s about right.” The response was overwhelmingly positive. A great majority of people recognized it as a unique comparison, one that they had never seen before, and also as an accurate comparison that…
William A. Levinson
Some ISO 9001 users complain that the standard does not improve performance or deliver bottom-line results, while others are delighted by the standard as a framework for effective quality management systems. I pointed out previously that ISO 9001:2015 does not address, at least not explicitly, the…
Tonianne DeMaria
While heading to a session at the most recent Lean Transformation Summit, I found myself confronted with signage that posed the following open-ended question: “All problem solvers must....”
Given how the work we do at Modus Cooperandi focuses largely on the nexus between lean for knowledge work,…
Jim Benson
Focusing on our most important work (so that we can get it out the door and create value) is hard. It’s harder still when work suddenly picks up, is unfamiliar, or arrives with immediate deadlines when we are already busy.
The tyranny of the urgent often distracts us from what is truly important…
GBMP
American Rheinmetall Systems (ARS) LLC, formerly Vingtech, is located in Biddeford, Maine. Established in January 2007, as part of a Norwegian company that had received a supplier contract for the U.S. Army’s CROWS remote weapon station program, the company was acquired by the Rheinmetall Group in…
Mike Richman
QDL from Fri., Sept. 15, 2017, demonstrated that everywhere you look, you’ll find the positive effect of better quality. Here’s what we chatted about:
““U.S. Business Sectors Gain or Hold Steady in Public Esteem”
According to a recent Gallup survey, U.S. citizens’ outlook on a number of industries…
Christopher Martin
It’s said that the first five years of children’s lives are important to their future development and growth. Most of that is spent at home with parents and loved ones, before children are thrust into the first stage of their next 13 years of development: kindergarten. Being a parent of two…
Jon Speer
Medical device startups tend to share many common issues. They are usually striving for better resources (such as people and capital) as well as the knowledge and expertise required to deal with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and successfully bring a product to market.
For many…
Dr T Burns
I had humble, that is, poor, beginnings. I didn’t even know the taste of real ice cream until later in life. One of the first impacts I felt of the luxury that technology brings was the diode my father bought for me to replace the cat’s whisker on my crystal radio. My high school was lovingly…
Kevin Meyer
One of the most powerful lean tools is called value stream mapping, a visual management method used to document the flow and creation of value in a process. The definition of a value stream is all steps—both value-added and nonvalue-added—that contribute to taking the process from raw materials to…
Therese Graff
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal (“The Reason Southwest Stopped Overbooking”), which contained excerpts from an interview with Southwest Airlines’ CEO Gary Kelly, brought out the need to address airline capacity issues on the ground and in the air. Responding to a question on the impact…
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Our August 11, 2017, episode of QDL looked at the role of technology in after-market service, stairs that help you up, Fidget Cubes, and more.
“Climbing Stairs Just Got Easier With Energy-Recycling Steps”
These stairs actually help you go up.
“The Curious Case of the Fidget Cube”
How a product…
Gerald Friedman
It’s easier than ever to buy stuff. You can purchase almost anything on Amazon with a click, and it is only slightly harder to find a place to stay in a foreign city on Airbnb. So why can’t we pay for healthcare the same way?
My research into the economics of healthcare suggests we should be able…
Bruce Hamilton
At GBMP’s launch of the Shingo Institute’s Build Excellence workshop, it occurred to me that perhaps systems thinking might be more aptly named systems rethinking. Workshop participants offered up current systems in their organizations that actually impeded continuous improvement, each time…
Jun Nakamuro
Japanese improvement techniques have been emulated across the globe for decades, and none carries more cultural weight than the theory of kaizen. When I expose Western leaders to lean practices in Japan, they often express that they have come away with a better understanding of “true kaizen.” They…
Ken Levine, Satish Nargundkar
Completing the define phase of a lean Six Sigma (LSS) project is a critical part of any project, although it’s often underestimated in practice. The define phase of the define, measure, analyze, improve, control (DMAIC) process typically includes three elements. The first is selecting a specific,…
