The Lean Insider

Because lean as we know it today is almost synonymous with the Toyota Production System, lean discussions of the auto industry tend to focus...

True commitment is when you stand by your principles even when it is difficult. Case in point: Toyota. On Aug. 8, Toyota halted production o...

My wife’s doctor is part of a medical group that has its own laboratory. That is convenient because it means the patient can have a blood te...

What is the best organizational structure for tackling a system with huge problems? Lean advocates will tell you that the structure has to b...

Money talks, and when it is being used to encourage better quality healthcare, doctors are listening. The federal Centers for Medicare and M...

Does it matter whether the top lean person in a company reports directly to the CEO, or is a few levels removed? Not much. Or so says Bob Pa...

Ford has announced that focusing on quality saves money. Too bad it took them so long to find out. The automaker just issued a news release ...

I’ve occasionally written about conferences where some speaker from Toyota stood out – not because he or she was a better speaker than anyon...

Creating the right floor plan is a critical part of a lean operation. It is the only way to optimize flow and eliminate wasteful movement an...

You don’t hear a lot about lean principles being applied to marketing, so I was pleased to attend a session on exactly that topic at the rec...