Last week, I got back from my third trip to Japan and we visited three hospitals, Toyota, another manufacturer, and heard from a cafeteria services company leader about their Lean and continuous improvement journeys. As I’ve blogged about before, some of these organizations have been practicing TQM for 30 years and are adding elements of Lean methods on top of that foundation.

I’m hardly an expert on Japan. I still feel like I view the country with fresh eyes.

Standards and Standardized Work… at Work

During this trip, I heard a number of people talk about the cultural imperative about following rules and laws. In the workplace, we might call these rules “standardized work”…