Steve Blank on Lean Startup at Ann Arbor

I attended Steve Blank’s presentation on Customer Development at the Ann Arbor New Tech Meetup last night. His talk was entertaining and very insightful. Even though I have read his book several times and followed the Lean Startup practically since the beginning, it still was worth the 5 hour round trip to hear the message Read More …

Dr. Jeff Liker on PDCA and Lean Culture

Dr. Jeff Liker celebrated author and authority on Toyota and the Toyota Production System was my guest on the Business901 podcast and we discussed his upcoming book, The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement (Book release date is May 13th, I have pre-ordered mine). Dr. Liker in comparing Lean and Six Sigma: Sometimes, I’ve heard people Read More …

Lean is Not a Revolution

As Dr. Balle said, “Toyota didn’t become number one by having lower manufacturing costs, they became number one by making cars people bought.” Excerpt from the Transcription of the Business901 Podcast, Outside the Walls of a Lean Enterprise: Joe:  Before you start can you define Kaizen? Are you defining Kaizen as just continuous improvement? Michael:  Read More …

Lean Sales and Marketing Presentation at ASQ Columbus

This is my presentation on Lean Sales and Marketing at the ASQ Columbus Spring Conference. The notes, I used are with the slides. I have to admit though, that after the first slide, I never looked at the notes at all. I also included link to download the entire PDF. The notes are a little Read More …

Views on Lean IT with Dr. Michael Balle

Lean technology has now evolved from the manufacturing floor to the whole enterprise. Many companies have found real value in applying the fundamental concepts of Lean throughout the organization. The lean concepts of Kaizen, PDCA and the tools such as Pareto Charts, 5 Why’s and even Poka Yoke are commonplace. As a result of discussing Read More …