A Collaborative approach to Value Stream Mapping

Value Stream Mapping has been a practice that was first introduced in the book Learning to See: Value Stream Mapping to Add Value and Eliminate MUDA by Mike Rother and John Shook. This groundbreaking workbook, which has introduced the value-stream mapping tool to thousands of people around the world, breaks down the important concepts of Read More …

Turning Leader Standard Work Upside Down

I find one of the problems that exist in Leader Standard Work practices is not at the Team Leader Level nor even the Supervisor Level but many times right at the top. In David Mann’s book Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions, Second Edition (which I consider the bible for Leader Standard Read More …

Six Sources of Influence in Change

From my blog post, The Difficulty of Mastery = The Difficulty of Lean, I started discussing the book, Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success . I found the work paralleling Lean in many of its approaches and put Lean practices in parenthesis. Their strategy is based on four simple steps: Identify Crucial Moments Read More …

If less than 1% of companies are successful with Lean

I have seen numerous times where Dr. Jeffrey Liker prominent author of the Toyota Way Series has claimed that less than 1% of companies are successful with Lean. I am not sure what criteria he bases this number on exactly but if he is even close why are we doing it? If you have studied Read More …

Lean and Six Sigma training for deployed Soldiers

Just received a copy of an article,  Resolute’ brigade provides Lean Six Sigma training to deployed Soldiers from Tim Fowler, a CPS Professional Services contractor assigned to Task Force Resolute at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Tim is teaching a group of U.S. Forces about Lean and Six Sigma. They are applying this training  immediately through improving Read More …

Proficient Drawing w Excel in 30 minutes!

Using Microsoft Excel as a drawing tool is a surprise to most of us. When we think of using Excel, we think of creating a spreadsheet and maybe if we are adventurous creating a graph. But there is a hidden power contained in Excel, the ability to draw. One of my most popular blog post Read More …