waste

There are many ways that lean thinkers look to signal that true problem solving has been pursued. These are a sort of litmus test for genuine versus fake lean efforts. Some of these are about artifacts, such as “show me your A3”, and some of these are about language, such

Waste is insidious. No matter what plateau of performance we are able to reach, waste creeps back into our work in often imperceptible ways. It’s not just that waste hurts our productivity and our profits, but it squeezes out good work, whether value-adding work or other worthwhile endeavors such as

While I try to practice a lens for waste in all of my work and passionately eliminate what I can, I haven’t done an actual waste walk on my work in a while. So I thought I would do a waste walk on the part of my work that has

In Part 1 of this series (Going Beyond Lean Thinking to Define Value). I challenged how the lean tenet regarding delivering value to our customer has been practiced.  In Part 2 I wrote for Industry Week, I examine how clearly understanding what the customers value and why they value it

There are connections in every organization.  Some are easily seen while others are not. But, look closely and you will find them.  In the recent column I wrote for IndustryWeek I examined the waste that often occurs in these connections.  It is in these connections, in the margins, that there

Have you ever been on the end of a batched process?  Chances are you have, either in your workplace or in your everyday life.  If you have ever been discharged from a hospital or experienced a yearly performance review, you were likely “batched”.  In the Lessons from Road the Column

Everyone performs work, and everyone has the opportunity to improve how that work is executed. In my last 2 columns for Industry Week, I have focused on different aspects of value, the customer, and waste elimination. I continue that theme in this month’s installment of Lessons from the Road in

  My latest IndustryWeek Lessons from the Road column has been released. This month’s topic is hopefully a fresh look at an old lean topic: waste elimination. Despite the many definitions to the contrary, many of you know that my view is that lean is not “all about” waste elimination.

Review any company’s slide decks on lean and you’ll likely find a definition for lean. They’re all a little different, but almost all of them center around one common theme: the elimination of waste. So, at least by consensus, this is the definition of lean: the elimination of waste. Of

Guest Post: James Lawther is Head of Operational Excellence for a FTSE 100 company. He blogs on the topic of service improvement, and he gets upset by poor customer service I am English.  If there is one thing the English love (and are particularly good at), it is the art