Tag: Layoffs

Scroll down for video, transcript, how to subscribe, and more My guest for Episode #407 of the Lean Blog Interviews podcast is Joy Mason, a...

I take no joy in the troubles of any automaker, be it Tesla, Nissan, GM or any others over time. Of course, Nissan and GM have been in the news most recently, with the firing (and jailing) of Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn. And now, GM has announced major layoffs, the cancelation of some passenger car programs, and the shutdown (and possible closure) of five plants in North America. I was talking to a friend the other day and I predicted that we'd see news headlines about something like "GM to get Leaner." These headlines would be using the word "lean" to mean "get smaller" instead of referring to "Lean" (which I capitalize as a proper noun) as a synonym for the Toyota Production System. I was disappointed to hear GM's CEO, Mary Barra, a long-time GM employee using the word "lean" in the context of the company getting smaller.

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?

I’ve heard a lot of rumblings recently about what might be happening at ThedaCare, a health system in Wisconsin that’s been considered one of the best examples of "Lean healthcare" anywhere in the world for more than a decade. It seems that there is an evolution occurring in their approach to Lean. I’ve received a formal statement from ThedaCare public relations, which you can find in this post, so I will stick to the facts that they have given me and other information that's publicly available online.

Here is the headline from the Dallas Morning News: "How Toyota improved Parkland Hospital's ER -- with purple lights." I'll give credit to Dr. Fred Cerise, the CEO of Parkland Memorial Hospital, for reaching out to Toyota and TSSC for help...

Art Byrne's latest book, The Lean Turnaround Action Guide, has a lot of great tips that he's trying to share, CEO to CEO. How many CEOs are reading this book and heeding his advice, in manufacturing or in healthcare?

I continue sharing documents from the Don Ephlin library archive. What did Ford and the UAW learn when they visited Japan in 1981? Many of the things that made Japanese industry successful are the same things that make organizations successful with Lean today, including in healthcare.

I saw this article a few days ago in one of the larger healthcare industry trade publications: How One Woman Saved IU Health $54 Million The headline is misleading, as addressed in the opening sentence / sub-headline of the story (via HealthLeaders): “With a little help from about 10,000 of her friends and colleagues, the head

I first blogged about this article back in 2009 and it's still online: "Keen to Be Lean" The sub headline talks about hospitals being "desperate to...

I get annoyed by corporate euphemisms, such as referring to people as "resources," the term "right-sizing" for layoffs, and the type of jargon and babble...

I'm going to be away from the blog (and Twitter) through July 13, but here are some blog posts from Julys of years past. 2015: See...

I've written before about the subject of hospitals "flexing" nurses and employees. I've criticized flexing (or the practice of sending employees home early because patient census is low) and I've pointed out that it's not keeping with "Lean" principles to "save money" by sending people home early.