Krista Schulte is the Assistant Director of Operational Excellence for the University of Michigan. She discusses her background, and how she is helping implement Lean in higher education. They also discuss an upcoming Lean in Higher Education conference in San Diego. She also describes what it was like having Jeffrey Liker as a professor when he was […]
Andrew Parris and Don Pope note some striking parallels between Lean and Christian/biblical principles, even though Lean has roots in Buddhist and Japanese teachings and culture. Through “tireless experimentation” the founders of Lean discovered timeless and universal principles that produced tangible results. Toyota systematized these principles and practices a management system that we now call […]
Written by Brion
Tim Turner worked at Toyota in Kentucky (TMMK) for 22 years, and has done a lot of work with nonprofits and not-for-profit organizations. He created the book, One Team on All Levels: Stories from Toyota Team Members In this podcast interview, he discusses his vast experiences and positions at Toyota, his perspective on servant leadership, […]
Written by Brion
Toyota partnered with Goodwill Industries of Connecticut to get the 200+ donations to the sales floor faster to improve sales. Toyota involved staff in improving their work which in turn helps Goodwill fund services that help people achieve independence and self-sufficiency through job training and other services. Reduced safety and ergonomic issues for workers Reduced […]
Written by Brion
Toyota’s North American headquarters in Plano has a small group of dedicated improvement professionals with a specific set of skills. Their role is to share Toyota’s “secret sauce” with society, which is their Toyota Production System. The Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) is a 16-person team that shares Toyota’s culture of empowering employees to […]
Written by Brion
by Zack Rosenburg When we (Liz McCartney and I) first realized that sustaining continuous improvement in our work required us to become an organization of problem solvers, we also discovered that we were not thrilled with the phrase continuous improvement, which felt a bit like a hamster on a wheel. And so, with the input of […]
Written by Brion
The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, was getting underway when Liz McCartney, a teacher, and Zack Rosenburg, a lawyer, walked into the “hippie tent,” a meal center in Chalmette, LA, run by the unconventionally dressed members of the Rainbow Family. The couple from Washington D.C. had driven down to help victims of Hurricane Katrina […]
Written by Brion
Each season more than 18,000 students attend the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) Young People’s Concerts; which translates to coordinating and scheduling approximately 50 school buses, street closures, managing weather complications. CSO invited Toyota to help ensure students’ safety; reduce student dismissal time and maximize the overall experience of students and volunteers. Improvements made: First: reduced […]
Written by Brion
Héma-Québec’s Public Mother’s Milk Bank provides breast milk donated by new mothers, to Québec hospitals caring for premature babies born at 32 weeks or earlier, whose mothers are unable to breastfeed. Héma-Québec’s goal was to achieve an annual output of 4,000 litres of milk – an amount that would meet the needs of Québec’s premature […]
Written by Brion
Some of the most powerful lean lessons come from people I like to call “accidental lean thinkers” – leaders who successfully followed lean principles long before they had heard of the Toyota Production System. One such leader, who is unknown to the lean community, is Mauricio L. Miller, president and founder of Family Independence Initiative […]
Written by Brion