Tag: Deming

W. Edwards Deming: Leadership, Quality, and Continuous Improvement

W. Edwards Deming’s ideas about leadership, systems, variation, and psychology continue to shape how organizations pursue quality and improvement. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections exploring Deming’s teachings—and how they apply to Lean, healthcare, management, and continuous improvement today. Many of these posts challenge common misinterpretations of Deming’s work, emphasizing that quality cannot be delegated and that improvement starts with leadership.

Should Lean Consultants Be Paid a Percentage of Cost Savings?

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The price paid for most management consulting work is based on either a daily rate or some variation of a flat-rate fee based on...

Did GM Forget that the Customer Should Come First? And Who...

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I wrote an article for LinkedIn yesterday about the recent GM ignition problem controversy and recall. I commented mainly on the video put out...

Is it Lean’s Fault or the Old Management System’s?

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It's easy for an organization to say they are "doing Lean" or they have "started a Lean transformation." They might hire a consultant or...

The Truth About Data and PDSA/PDCA from a Toyota Publication

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Out there in the Lean and quality improvement communities, you sometimes hear some silly things. Sometimes, I want to attach the "Lean As...

Parallels (and Differences) Between the Book “Traction” and Kaizen

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When I recently did a Healthcare Kaizen workshop near Detroit, I invited an old friend of mine to attend as a guest. Marisa Smith, an...

A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing – 5S & Lean

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I read this valid complaint from somebody on a LinkedIn group.... it led to a "facepalm" that I managed to catch on camera: I interviewed with...

Videos Look Inside the Tesla (former NUMMI) Factory – Will They...

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I was able to tour the NUMMI factory in 2005, which I really enjoyed (see my series of blog posts here). NUMMI was, of...

10 (Actually, 20) of the Most Read LeanBlog.org Posts in 2013

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Thanks everybody for reading my blog in 2013! I appreciate you taking time out of your busy day to read and participate in the...

Learning Not to Blame: “Jerk Bartender”

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In the Lean methodology, building upon the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, we work hard to shift away from "naming, blaming, and shaming."...

The Book That Changed Me: Understanding Variation by Donald J. Wheeler

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TL;DR: Understanding Variation by Donald J. Wheeler is the most influential book in my Lean journey. It taught me how to distinguish signal from...

My Medication Error on Myself

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Thankfully, it was nothing harmful or that dangerous... but I committed a medical mistake on myself last Saturday. I tweaked my lower back last Wednesday...

We STILL Need to Reduce Waiting Times for Veterans

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Today is Veterans Day in the U.S. and it's also Remembrance Day in Canada, the UK, and the Commonwealth countries. The poppy  pin is...
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