Monday, May 10, 2010

Management Improvement Carnival #97

Got Boondoggle is proud to host this edition of the Management Improvement Carnival. Please check out the following top posts from follow lean thinkers in recent weeks. Enjoy and learn!

Don’t Do 5S by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “So make sure that using 5S, at any point in the journey, is solving actual problems that you currently have. Start with the problem statement, then pick the tool. Don’t start by picking the tool.”

The Will, the Willow and the Frog by Jon Miller – “There are many stories from many cultures that remind us that with faith and will, nothing is impossible. The irony is that if you don’t believe this, you will never find out whether it is true.”

Leadership: The Power of Influence by Tim McMahon – “The challenge is to get people to follow in a direction they might not otherwise go.”

Continuous Improvement by Lee Fried – “Thus, there is no way an organization can claim to be promoting continuous improvement through events or projects. It will only occur when improving the work is the work.”

Kaizen in the Laundry Room and My Domestic Shortcomings by Mark Hamel – “Kaizen opportunities are often best identified (and done) by those who do the work.”

Lean Thoughts During Saturday Errands by Mark Graban – “In the course of these errands, I had some thoughts about lean or related to it (or just fun thoughts, maybe), including: Why 100% utilization isn’t possible or optimal, Visual controls with moving tape and Good “flow” from a store to a dental practice office.”

Some Growth is not Visible by Pete Abilla – “When you think about it, that’s how a culture is created. Not through some big program, or some big push top-down. Instead, true, long-term cultural change happens over a long period through many, many, small micro-interactions.”

3 Tips for Continuous Improvement by Ron Pereira – “In this article, I want to share some ideas for how to approach things such as workout programs and continuous improvement as they are surprisingly similar.”

Toyota the Bad Guy by John Shook – “Even so, we must recognize that even at its peak as an organizational GPS, Toyota was never as good as its reputation in some ways, but better in others. Both at once.”

The Human in the Loop by Mark Rosenthal – “If we truly want to construct a work environment where people make the best possible decisions, it behooves us to rid ourselves of decades old stereotypes and convenient beliefs about why people decide what they do.”

The Secret to Successfully Running a Lean Office: Daily Management by Jeff Hajek – “Daily Management is a proactive, systematic approach to balancing capacity and expected demand. In a nutshell, it is a process for using Deming’s PDCA cycle to manage a workday.”

Should I Pursue Waste Elimination or Lead Time Reduction? by Michael Balle as the Gemba Coach – “To respond to your question directly; there is no debate: Kaizen without a pull system will be disappointing.”

Bagel with a side of Jidoka by Evan Durant – “And the more we explore the concept of Jidoka the more we are forced to challenge our assumptions about what exactly the human and machine elements are. Often there are untapped opportunities to separate the two.”

4 comments:

Tim McMahon said...

Great list this carnival. Thanks for including me.

Mark R Hamel said...

Hi Mike,

Thanks so much for including me in the carnival. The company here is great!

Mike Wroblewski said...

Hey Tim and Mark,

You both have great posts so it is my pleasure to added them. I love reading your blogs.

Mike

Unknown said...

Thanks for including me. That "Don't Do 5S" post generated a lot of interesting discussion. I also got a lot of emails, up to and including making people's "blood boil." Apparently, 5S is as touchy a subject as healthcare reform.

Jamie