Dan Markovitz

Dan Markovitz
25 POSTS 3 COMMENTS
Dan Markovitz is president of Markovitz Consulting, a firm that radically improves operational speed and efficiency by applying lean concepts to knowledge work. He is a faculty member at the Lean Enterprise Institute and teaches at the Stanford University Continuing Studies Program. He also lectures on A3 thinking at the Ohio State University’s Fisher School of Business. Dan is a frequent speaker and presenter at conferences, and has consulted to organizations as diverse as Camelbak, Clif Bar, Abbott Vascular, WL Gore & Associates, Intel, the City of Menlo Park, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His book, A Factory of One, was honored with a Shingo Research Award in 2013. Dan has also published articles in the Harvard Business Review blog, Quality Progress, Industry Week magazine, Reliable Plant magazine, and Management Services Journal, among other magazines. All of these articles are available for download on the Resources page. Earlier in his career, he held management positions in product marketing at Sierra Designs, Adidas, CNET and Asics Tiger, where he worked in sales, product marketing, and product development. He also has experience as an entrepreneur, having founded his own skateboarding footwear company. Dan lived in Japan for four years and is fluent in Japanese. He holds a BA from Wesleyan University and an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Lean Transport: Buses vs. Light Rail

7
By Dan MarkovitzMark posted yesterday about the relative leanness of light rail vs. buses. He pointed out thata rail line probably has more...

Booz Gets Lean (without knowing it)

0
by Dan MarkovitzThe latest issue of Strategy+Business, Booz Allen Hamilton's business journal, features an article on cost cutting. Ordinarily, simple cost cutting flies...

What About The Other Car Makers?

0
by Dan MarkovitzThis blog has commented (here and here) on the WSJ's rush to predict the folly of just-in-time manufacturing in the wake...

The Normalcy Of Waste

4
By Dan MarkovitzLast week the Wall Street Journal interviewed George David, the CEO of United Technologies. Though the conversation didn't address his views...

Clarifying Lean vs. Frugal

2
By Dan MarkovitzThere's been some confusion over my recent post criticizing the Business Week article on Toyota's "frugality." I do not believe that...

Lean Is Not "Frugal." Lean Is "Value."

3
By Dan MarkovitzBusinessWeek online joined the rest of the media in noting that Toyota just passed GM as the global leader in auto sales...

What Will You Do Differently Today?

4
By Dan MarkovitzBack in October, Lifehacker ran a lengthy article on "personal kaizen." The thrust of the piece is how we can improve...

Multitasking is NOT Part of Standard Work

5
The New York Times ran an article this weekend exposing the myth of multitasking. Despite the common belief that we have to multi-task to...

Newsflash! Respecting workers = better results!

3
By Dan MarkovitzYesterday's Wall Street Journal ran an article explaining that employees are more likely to embrace changes when they're fully informed of the...

Error Proofing Your Meetings

0
By Dan Markovitz Sometimes it's hard to spot errors in an office, much less error-proof the workspace. With so many value streams...

"I Canna Get Warp Drive Back In Less Than Two Days,...

1
By Dan Markovitz:(Mark's note: I saw this article and instantly thought of Dan, re: Lean in an office environment. The dynamics in...

The 5S Workplace: Cause or Effect?

4
By Dan Markovitz, Time Back Management:A response to an earlier post...Is messiness really beneficial?I think the authors of A Perfect Mess make a silly...