Guest Post

One-Piece-Flow Projects Create the Best Conditions for True Creativity

By Guest Post / November 20, 2014 / 0 Comments

Guest post by Michael Ballé (repost from his Gemba Coach column on Lean.org) Dear Gemba Coach, For product development you need creative (maybe even chaotic) people. Are those people suited to follow such a structured method as lean? Like trying to achieve one-piece-flow in product development? Thank you. What an interesting question! As a writer […]

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The System Will Produce What It’s Capable of Producing

By Guest Post / October 13, 2014 / 1 Comment

Which brings us to response time targets. Putting aside the arguments that numerical targets are arbitrary and prone to causing dysfunctional behaviour*, a critical further point is that targets do not provide a method. Neither do they provide additional capacity for achieving the improvements sought. Therefore, setting an arbitrary numerical target for response times (or anything else), simply does not change anything about those systems conditions that dictate predictable levels of performance. The system will produce what it’s capable of producing, whether the target is there or not.

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The Futility of a Numerical Goal

By Guest Post / January 2, 2014 / 0 Comments

Guest post by Tim Higgins In discussions about goals, I typically find attempts to create two distinct categories of goals. I see the words “arbitrary goals.” Arbitrary numerical goals are believed to be bad, problematic. Some numerical goals the non-arbitrary type are believed to be useful, good, even necessary. I could find no evidence Deming […]

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2013 Annual Deming Conference Recap: Homecoming At Purdue

By Guest Post / October 22, 2013 / 0 Comments

Guest post by Mike Stoecklein [broken link removed] I was at Purdue University this past weekend for what I would call a “homecoming”. I did not attend this university, but I still think of this as a homecoming. The W. Edwards Deming Institute hosts an annual conference at universities around the United States. This year […]

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Using Control Charts to Aid in Improving the Classroom Learning Environment

By Guest Post / September 19, 2013 / 0 Comments

Guest Post – Chatterbox by Lou Tribus I teach a Year 4 class in a small private primary school in central London. That would be the equivalent in the USA, by age of a 3rd grade class or academically of a 4th grade class. One of the benefits of a small private school is small […]

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Fewer Patients-In-Process and Less Safety Scheduling; Incoming Supplies are Secondary

By Guest Post / August 22, 2013 / 0 Comments

Guest Post by Sami Bahri As a way to improve operations, manufacturers reduce inventory levels at all steps in a value stream. Taiichi Ohno, inventor of the “Toyota production System,” said that inventory conceals operational waste the same way water in a lake hides underlying rocks. Ohno advised reducing inventory levels to uncover waste. In […]

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What’s Deming Got to Do With Agile Software Development and Kanban

By Guest Post / July 18, 2013 / 0 Comments

Guest post by Dennis Stevens When I show the Kanban board, a tool that is borrowed from Lean, I hear, “Well, software development is an artistic process – you can’t apply manufacturing principles to it.” Or, “I was involved in a Six Sigma (or TQM) project that was devastating – Lean doesn’t translate to software […]

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We Need to Understand Variation to Manage Effectively

By Guest Post / February 7, 2013 / 2 Comments

Guest post by Mike Stoecklein I had the good fortune to get to know Dr. Deming beginning in 1986. I call it a “correspondence relationship”. We wrote letters (these were the days before e-mail, and I doubt that Dr. Deming would ever send an e-mail even if it had existed). I played a small role […]

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Deming Research Seminar Round Table Session

By Guest Post / January 28, 2013 / 0 Comments

Guest post by Dave Nave: I will lead one of the round table sessions at this year’s Deming Research Seminar (25th and 26th February 2013 in New York City). I thought I would share a little something of my topic. Two other roundtables will also be held: on Education led by Dr. Francis Petit and […]

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