One of the biggest challenges in transforming an organization into a truly Lean organization is to change its typical reflexes in coping with problems. The way in which organizations deal with problems is predictive of the extent to which they will be able to embrace Lean thinking and doing. If organizations – and particularly their
This post was triggered by a post that Harish Jose wrote on purposeful and purposive entities in systems thinking (see: The purpose of purposeful entities in purposive systems). In that post, an autonomous entity was defined as an entity that has freedom of choice and is free to make its own rules. This triggered me,
Lean can present itself in many ways. To some, Lean appears as a grassroots initiative and as bottom-up improvement by everyone, everywhere, anytime. Others experience Lean more as a top-down initiative, driven by management and accompanied by standards, audits and specialists. Indeed, Lean can be seen as a many-faced phenomenon; almost as if Lean has
Most of us are confronted with this question: how to create productive change? We all face the same difficulties in getting teams and organizations to another level of performance using sometimes fundamentally different principles. Developing and communicating an enticing vision surely helps, but a certain sense of urgency is always required. But here I notice
You just became the proud owner of the title “Lean (Six Sigma) Black Belt” (or any other color for that matter)? Congratulations! But what, in fact, does this exactly mean? In any case, it means you invest in yourself or the organization you work for invests in its people. Good for you. But a lot
Tell me, does it make a difference in how you treat your car depending upon whether it is a company car or your own? And what about homes: is there a difference in maintenance between rented homes and owned ones? A 2013 study, conducted in the Netherlands by Platform31 based upon the national registration of the
We often speak about the two pillars of the Toyota or Lean system, and when doing so we think of the two well-known pillars of just-in-time (JIT) and built-in quality (jidoka). JIT thereby focuses on manufacturing only the necessary products, at the necessary time, in the necessary quantity by deploying pull flow (kanban), one piece
One of the key elements in Lean is standardization. And despite the fact that standardization in Lean thinking is not the same as harmonization or making everything identical, the public opinion is that standardization will reduce flexibility and kill creativity. So why then does Lean focus on standardization? Could it be that the public opinion
Meanwhile many organizations have started with Lean. Especially standing in front of a whiteboard with performance data seems to be the hottest thing in town nowadays. The thing that bothers me in these daily huddles or stand-up meetings is that the data often comes from outside the team. I then tell them there is a
As most will know and acknowledge, a key aspect of a truly Lean organization is its continuous drive towards better. Problems are seen as opportunities to learn how work really works and to distill improvements from the analysis of the problem and its underlying cause system. It is through this continuous problem detection and rigorous,
