Tag: Respect for People

The past few months have been an anxious and contemplative time. I've been worried about the coronavirus / Covid-19 and the possible impact on...

It's great to see examples of manufacturing companies being flexible and adaptive in these challenging times. Lean methods are often providing a huge boost...

Monday was the first day of my fifth Lean study trip to Japan. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to once again visit a Toyota...

Last month, I had an opportunity to visit the Toyota North American Headquarters that's now near me in Plano, Texas. Thanks to the MIT...

This article made me smile the other day -- especially the comments about Lean, front-line staff, and systems: Q & A with Art Gianelli, president...

Quite often, I used the famed "Red Bead Game" (a.k.a. the "Red Bead Experiment") that was made famous by W. Edwards Deming. Here are my...

Last week, I had the chance to teach and facilitate a Lean education session for a group of health system executives and physician leaders...

The first part of this post is a pretty long introduction before sharing quotes and views from an article that raises concerns about Lean...

A retired labor leader from the automotive industry (who reads this blog) sent me a link to this article: #RedforMed: 1,800 Vermont Nurses Are On Strike Demanding Their Hospital Put Patients Over Profits The article isn't from a newspaper; it's from a site that provides "independent and incisive coverage of the labor movement and the struggles of workers to obtain safe, healthy and just workplaces." Again, for the record, I'm all in favor of "safety, healthy, and just workplaces." That's what Lean management aims to deliver.

Today, I'm giving a talk at the International Society for Blood Transfusion (ISBT) conference in Toronto. I was invited by the company Quotient to participate in a panel presentation and discussion with some laboratory professionals from the U.S. and the U.K. The others are presenting examples of how they have improved flow, productivity, and quality in blood collection and hospital blood bank settings. Lean often gets portrayed as just being about efficiency or flow, when Toyota's definition of the Toyota Production System talks about how flow and quality go hand in hand. I was specifically asked to give a short talk titled, "What Do Cars Have to Do With Healthcare? How to Adopt and Adapt Lessons From Manufacturing."

Joining me for Episode #307 of the podcast is my friend Andre DeMerchant, the President of DeMerchant Healthcare Solutions Inc., based in Kitchener, Ontario. We first crossed paths when we had the chance to work together with an American healthcare client via our then-affiliation with Pascal Dennis and Lean Pathways.  In today's episode, we talk about Andre's history working for Toyota in Canada and what he learned there -- and why it's important that he learned about "how flow works" at Toyota. We chat about the terms "Lean" and "The Toyota Production System" and what those words mean to him. How does TPS "transcend culture and language," as well as industries? We then shift to talking about healthcare and some of the common challenges, including "financial hardships," that are faced in many countries. Why are hospitals "poorly prepared for change" in many cases? Another main theme is "cost cutting" and why you can't cut your way to success. 

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?