Looking for Waste and Bad Process at the Order Grill from Portlandia
I love the show “Portlandia” and I also love the “Toast Kaizen” video. I bet the latter is more well known and is more popular in my Lean circles. “Toast Kaizen” is a great intro to continuous...
View ArticleThe Book “Rivethead” and GM’s Demeaning “Quality Cat” Mascot
I've updated and am republishing an old 2005 blog post that I wrote about a former GM assembly worker, Ben Hamper, who has some very funny stories in his book, Rivethead: Tales From the Assembly Line....
View ArticleA Modern Version of Lucy and the Chocolate Factory — But With Sushi (Drake &...
I bet many of you know the famous “Chocolate Factory” scene from the TV classic “I Love Lucy.” Even if you're too young to know the series or Lucille Ball, I bet many of you have seen this in a Lean...
View ArticleA Look Back at LeanBlog April Fools’ Pranks, Including Wii Lean and Baby’s...
2024 Update: A new April Fool's Post for KaiNexus… or is it? The Rediscovered Origins of KaiNexus: A 1980s Video Game The Full Collection of Previous Posts: Here's a collection of my April Fool's Day...
View ArticleThrowback Thursday: The Suggestion Box is Dead, with a New Obituary
As a Throwback Thursday, I'm sharing this webinar that I did back in 2012, as hosted by Karen Martin: On this theme of “The Suggestion Box is Dead,” I thought to prompt ChatGPT to create an image of a...
View ArticleGemba Claus is Comin’ to Town! [An Original Song]
Here's a musical holiday treat for my regular Lean Blog readers and podcast listeners, a song parody, initially released in 2009, and then remastered a bit in 2022: “Gemba Claus is Comin' to Town”...
View ArticleLost in Translation: Does Lean Jargon Hinder Communication and Clarity?
Does jargon–or Japanese terms like ‘Hoshin Kanri'–get in the way of clear communication in your organization? It reminds me of the classic Saturday Night Live ‘Celebrity Jeopardy!' sketches, where Sean...
View ArticleWhose Fault Is It Anyway? The Case for Learning Over Blaming
In workplaces and beyond, mistakes are inevitable. The way we handle them, however, makes all the difference. A New Yorker cartoon I recently came across captures this perfectly… here's part of it: A...
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