Tag: Kaizen

Mark's Note: Today's post is the first guest post by Jess Orr, who you might remember from the webinars that she did for KaiNexus. I hope you enjoy the post... As a continuous improvement practitioner, I recently faced a challenge that seemed nearly insurmountable.

Last week, I wrote Part 1 of this piece about TQM and "Small Kaizen" at a Japanese Hospital pharmacy. The hospital was happy that employees were participating in their "Small Kaizen" process, but there was a month in which they saw the number of submitted Kaizens drop, from about 138 to 58 or so. As I write about in Measures of Success, two data points usually don't make a trend.

The first thing that prompted me to write this post is an interesting article about Toyota and their Georgetown, Kentucky plant that's known as TMMK (via Ward's Auto): "New Lexus Big Test for Toyota’s Georgetown Plant and Its New Manager" How does their approach and mindset seem to differ from Tesla?

I'm overdue in writing more about my last trip to Japan a few months back. Today, I'll like to share some highlights from one organization we visited, Seki Chuo Hospital, which is located outside of Nagoya. I have visited this hospital in 2012 and 2014 and it's interesting to see how their approach to Total Quality Management (TQM), Lean, and Kaizen has progressed and evolved. I mentioned them in a 2014 post about "quality circles."

Again, Tesla and their CEO Elon Musk are generating a lot of news and, I think, many things to think about, even if the lessons learned are, perhaps, about things NOT to do in our organizations. See previous posts about Tesla As you might know, Tesla has been very much behind schedule with their Model 3 production ramp up. Last week, we saw news stories about a production shutdown that's intended to get things back on track: "Tesla Is Temporarily Shutting Down Model 3 Production. Again." Are short-term layoffs the best thing to do for the long term?

Back on the podcast for the fifth time is my friend David Meier, a Lean / TPS consultant who is a former Toyota leader at their plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. He's gotten into what's, perhaps, the most Kentucky of industries... distilling bourbon (and more). I'll have two more podcast episodes where David and I talk about bourbon, whiskey, and continuous improvement for almost 90 minutes total there. Those episodes are coming soon. Today is a shorter episode, where we catch up and hear more about what David has been doing since his last podcast appearance in 2010 when we talked about the challenges Toyota was facing then. In this episode, David drops a lot of knowledge and wisdom in a very short time -- thoughts on problem solving and how Lean thinking isn't easy for anybody, even if you're Japanese.

I was recently asked to do a recorded video presentation for a medical conference in Turkey. I spoke about the dual pillars of "The Toyota Way": Respect for People Continuous Improvement The video is about 20 minutes, split about half and half on each of those interrelated topics. I'm coming to you from a hotel room, somewhat tired after a day of consulting. (Slides PDF and transcript also included)

Today, I'd like to share the latest in my series of articles about "Champions of Change," which is based on a discussion I had with Joe Swartz about continuous improvement in materials and supply chain settings.

Monday, I blogged about the sushi-making class I took on my last Sunday in Japan. Later that same Sunday, I did a walking food tour in the Shibuya area. Walking food tours are a great way to explore and learn about a city. In our small group, there was a couple from Australia and a retired couple from South Africa. Between stops on the tour, the South African gentleman, a retired mining company manager or executive, asked me why I was there in Japan for work.

It's Monday morning in Nagoya, Japan as I write this. I'm still jet-lagged and up early, so here's a blog post after all... Sunday, I had the chance to visit the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology in Nagoya. There's so much that I can blog about...I'll write more posts about my museum visit in the future. In this post though, I share a little bit about some of the books that they sell - in English and Japanese...

This podcast is sponsored by Cardinal Health. Joining me again for episode #301 of the podcast is Joe Swartz, my friend and co-author for our books Healthcare Kaizen and The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen:. You can learn more about our books here. He also contributed a chapter to the book Practicing Lean. (read an excerpt). Today, we're talking about "Champions of Change," as I've been writing about for Cardinal Health.

Not all Japanese companies are the same. "Lean isn't easy" if you're a Japanese company. Toyota has created something special, since "Toyota culture" is not exactly the same as "Japanese culture." The WSJ says the "model is cracking." Do scandals involving quality and ethical lapses involving companies including those and Nissan tarnish Lean and the Toyota Production System? No. That's as silly as thinking the Wells Fargo banking scandal tarnishes Silicon Valley (although the Valley does enough to tarnish itself).