Category: Lean

In a service organization, the most efficient method for cutting waste is to attack anything and everything that is not done right the first time. This concept, known as first time right, involves making sure that all activities are carried out in the right manner the first time and every time. Examples include a customer […]

Information technology (IT) organizations increasingly are under pressure to improve their service and process capability. In the quest for improvement methodologies, organizations often adopt a “pick one” strategy – with Six Sigma being the widely favored choice. However, it is possible to integrate Lean and Six Sigma and reap the full benefits that these methodologies can […]

Home mortgage loans in the United States usually closed in about four weeks even a couple of years ago. Some on-line mortgage loan originators are doing the same closings in about two weeks now. Safeco, one of the largest insurance services providers in the country, needed a week to make any changes in coverage in […]

A growing number of organizations are studying the commercial use of radio frequency identification (RFID). Several large companies have invested large sums in RFID development, and companies such as Wal-Mart plan to require RFID compliance from their suppliers. Nonetheless, many companies do not yet have a full grasp of what this technology may mean to […]

Excessive – and often redundant – documentation can often be found in organizations handling outsourced projects. To overcome this waste, follow a simple plan for leaning existing documents, and for creating new Lean documents.

Lean, like other process improvement methodologies, is based on the big idea from the 1980s that a business is composed of a series of processes, a value stream, that delivers value to its customers. A process is Lean if it uses only the absolute minimum of resources (material, machines and labor) to add value to […]

Organizations can profit from learning to think in terms of Lean, a philosophy that aims to eliminate waste. Learn the six steps to a strong Lean foundation, including detailed questions to ask at each step to review current status.

“Let the process flow.” “Let the customer pull.” This is what is written in manufacturing books about making processes Lean. But it is not always that simple. Consider this banking example. A customer arrives at a bank branch: He enters, is welcomed by an employee and offered a cup of coffee. He explains his interest […]

Lean government. The very idea sounds implausible. Even to the seasoned Lean practitioner, the idea of a Lean government sounds far fetched. Governments are traditionally seen as the epitome of bureaucracy, and the guardians of red tape, incomprehensible forms and endless queues. But there are workable Lean strategies for governments seeking to reduce waste and […]

The process improvement journey at Jordan Hospital took a large step forward last year when the organization was introduced to Lean Six Sigma concepts as part of a departmental optimization effort for its internal pharmacy.

Lean is a wonderful experience when deployed properly and can be a nightmare when it is not. When properly deployed, a company has productive and relatively happy employees, increased efficiency, on-time deliveries and all sorts of other desirable outcomes. When it is not deployed properly, a company can have angry customers, frustrated employees, late deliveries, […]

One of the biggest challenges for Six Sigma practitioners in financial services is developing the ability to recognize waste. Imagine an “overnight pack” entering Bank One’s wholesale lockbox process for processing remittance payments. By the time it has been through every step, up and down the elevators, back and forth between departments, it would have […]

University Medical Imaging successfully implemented a Lean and Six Sigma transactional process improvement and training program when delays and other issues began to affect patient satisfaction.

Digital check processing. Fraud detection. Compliance monitoring. Trading floor analytics. These are all integral functions for many modern financial service institutions. And all have one thing in common – they require a huge amount of computing power. One approach to providing fast responses even with highly complex computations is distributed computing, or creating a shared compute […]

The experience of a European life insurance provider highlights the lessons learned from transferring Lean from the shop floor to the office as well as providing a deployment model that integrates Lean, Six Sigma and process management.

Since its introduction nearly two decades ago, Six Sigma has been embraced by many organizations and industries involved in manufacturing and transactional services as a cost-effective way to improve quality and productivity. As a method to eliminate variation and defects, Six Sigma makes use of a structured approach and statistical tools to find the root […]

A P&L manager who is preparing a monthly report starts gathering the information he needs. He realizes that this month’s sales figures are not broken out by region, so he calls accounting and asks for the regional split as quickly as possible. He also discovers that he has updates on only three of the four […]

Throughout my career I’ve had the pleasure of meeting colleagues from a very large variety of manufacturing cultures. Sometimes I talk to people that work in a “mass” environment with poor performance, and I hear about how good it must be to work in an efficient workplace, with relatively good performance. I always get the […]

Over the years, I’ve come in contact with several different companies that say that they are “lean”. Yes, TPS (the Toyota Production System) is a great framework for production, with its teachings of one-piece flow, kanban, etc…but what about the actual implementation of the lean concepts at other companies besides Toyota? I’ve seen desks with […]

That would be… Consultants. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak about lean for clinical laboratories at the recent Leadership Exchange conference, hosted by the American Society for Clinical Pathology. In discussions during the conference, I was asked many questions about the use of consultants to get started with lean. In many cases, […]

If you’d like to take a beginner’scourse on Lean, look to Ron Pereira’s Gemba Academy. He has releasedhis first video, Introduction to Lean Manufacturing. The clip below (and on the LSS Academy site) is the first 10 minutes of the 15 minute intro to Lean. Don’t waste another minute in Lean ignorance…

I was talking with a group of people about leading lean, and someone asked me, “Are you a Sensei?” So of course I said “No!” I don’t call myself a Sensei, because I consider myself to be at the grasshopper-level of lean expertise. However, the question did make me think. I call myself a Black […]

I have been thinking a lot lately about how the Toyota Production System was developed. Unlike those of us who have books, websites, and training programs in abundance, Toyota engineers took their process of assembly-line manufacture of automobiles and created, in incremental steps, the methodology that’s now known as Lean. It took shape over a […]

I’ve spent a good part of this past summer travelling for business. In the past, I might have flown a few times a year for conferences, but this year I’ve earned quite a few “miles,” Now, I know that some of you are already experienced Road Warriors, and you are probably already laughing at me, […]