Situation. A multi-national manufacturer was implementing a lean management system (LMS) in a phased manner within one of their facil

I am halfway through reading, what I consider (thus far), an important lean book.

What do bus schedules have to do with a lean management system? Quite a bit…even though, obviously, the notion of a bus schedule is more metaph

I remember, years ago, watching my oldest child struggle in his attempt to loosen a bolt. This was one of those all too few, brief, and shining child-rearing moments where I could easily and quickly share some trusty words of wisdom. “Righty tighty, lefty loosey.” I’m pretty sure that my son’s response was somewhere in the vicinity of, “Huh?” Not the effect that I was looking for necessarily. …Nevertheless, I’m going to try to apply the same advice, but to a different subject (totally without threaded parts). Strategy deployment (a.k.a. policy deployment, hoshin kanri, etc.). Huh?

Larry Loucka, a close friend and colleague, recently pointed me to a February 16th Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article.

Now, before you roll your eyes and give me the WSJ-isn’t known-for-getting-the-lean-thing-right look, hear me out. What the Journal published is really, really good stuff…even if lean, and 5S in particular, was the furthest thing from their brilliant mind(s).

As some of you may recall, I launched a new blog called Lean Math back in February with a couple of my buddies. In my humble opinion, I think that the ever-growing content is pretty useful stuff for lean practitioners.

In any event, I just wanted to share some basic holiday lean math...

PEACE ON EARTH + GOODWILL = HAPPY HOLIDAYS

OK, I know that what I’m about to say may sound cynical, but 20 years of personal, hard knock lean experience tells me that this is reality. And most folks I think would, or at least should (I hope), agree with me. The majority of companies pursuing a lean implementation do so superficially. (Did I just hear you yawn?!) Many fail to understand the transformational lean principles, much less have the will to rigorously live them.

We’ve all undoubtedly had the notion of respect for people drilled into our heads. Of course, it’s easy to speak about such a principle. Much  harder to live it.

In any event, let me humbly add another recipient of our deserved respect.

Process.

First, a distinction, it’s not THE Process, meaning we are not talking about one single, special process that is elevated above all others. We’re talking about ANY process within our value streams.

Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) will be hosting its first Fall 2013 session. The session, comprised of 13 workshops, will be held in Minneapolis from September 17th through 20th and will focus, "on such fundamental concepts as standardized work, leader standard work, kaizen (both daily improvement and team-based rapid improvement events), visual management and value-stream mapping in the context of organizational change and learning."