Evaluating Executive Performance

This month's question on The Lead Edge from Eric Buehrens Chief Operating Officer, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center the following - What is the right lean way to evaluate executive performance? My response over on the Lean Edge: Let’s consider answering this question in reverse for some contrast in terms of discussion. In other words what is th...
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Lean Management versus Management by Personality

This month's question asks how can a Lean implementation program survive a change in top management? After all a Lean journey can take many years and a CEO might only be in place for a few years. The implied question I suppose is what is to stop the next CEO from abandoning the course? In the short run this can indeed be a problem and only true success and careful planning can ...
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Toyota’s True North Concept

This month's question deals with the concept of True North in lean implementation and has four parts. 1) What is the role of True North in Lean Thinking? 2) How do we define the concept? 3) In what way does it contribute to lean results? and 4) Can lean be done without True North? I will deal with these four parts to the question one by one in the paragraphs below. True Nort...
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Lean Success

Art Smalley: Lean Success By Art Smalley, author of Creating Level Pull and co-author of A3 Thinking - Last updated: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - Save & Share - Leave a comment We have discussed the topic of why so few companies really show substantial progress when it comes to lean implementation quite a few times on this web site. I won’t rehash all those t...
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Tools, Rules, Principles, and Lean Wallpaper

Art Smalley: Tools, Rules, Principles, and Lean Wallpaper By Art Smalley, author of Creating Level Pull and co-author of A3 Thinking - Last updated: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - Save & Share - Leave a comment I have had a long and somewhat tortured fascination with regards to this topic and other similar questions. In terms of background when I returned to ...
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Toyota and Capital Investment

Art Smalley: Toyota and Capital Investment By Art Smalley, author of Creating Level Pull and co-author of A3 Thinking - Last updated: Sunday, March 20, 2011 - Save & Share - Leave a comment In the previous post I responded to a question about capital investment and the Ohira plant of Central Motors (a Toyota affiliated company producing the Yaris) that is...
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Ohira Plant and Investment

Art Smalley: Ohira Plant and Investment By Art Smalley, author of Creating Level Pull and co-author of A3 Thinking - Last updated: Saturday, March 19, 2011 - Save & Share - Leave a comment There are several parts to this question and I will probably break up my thoughts into two different posts on the topic of capital investment. The question asked perta...
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Always Room for Improvement

Art Smalley: Always Room for Improvement By Art Smalley, author of Creating Level Pull and co-author of A3 Thinking - Last updated: Monday, February 21, 2011 - Save & Share - Leave a comment The Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued their release of the study performed in conjunction with NASA engine...
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Financial Benefits

Art Smalley: Financial Benefits By Art Smalley, author of Creating Level Pull and co-author of A3 Thinking - Last updated: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - Save & Share - Leave a comment Historically Toyota Motor Corporation has been a very profitable company over the past 60 years in what is generally a very cyclical business. Before its recent problems Toyo...
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