“A Lean thinker is interested in and in a way even welcomes (if not joyfully) the appearance of interruptions, anomalies, and problems in his or her process as opportunities to understand and eliminate sources of variation and disruption. This root cause orientation to corrective action is a powerful engine in driving continuous, lasting improvement.”  Creating […]

“…Toyota learned long ago that solving problems at the source saves time and money downstream. By continually surfacing problems and fixing them as they occur, you eliminate waste, productivity soars, and competitors who are running assembly lines flat out and letting problems accumulate get left in the dust.”  The Toyota Way 2nd Edition by Jeffrey […]

“Toyota considers problem solving as the main activity for all levels of the organization.”  Toyota Culture  by Jeffrey Liker & Michael Hoseus (McGraw Hill, 2008) Kindle Edition location 3507.

(See posts from 6/19 and 6/20 describing the blog-post defect I caused and my first 2 steps of problem-solving) In this final part to my mini-problem-solving example, I’ll describe what I’ve done to prevent future “defects” in my blog-posts. As you may recall, I wrote a blog post on Tue 6/18 but discovered that it […]

(See yesterday’s post for Part 1 describing the defect I caused and my first steps of problem-solving) An important early step in problem-solving is “Go to Gemba.” Gemba is the place where the problem happened. If the problem-solver DOESN’T go to gemba, it’s far too easy to make false assumptions about what caused the problem. […]

My topic this week is “Jidoka”, which refers to the practice of designing a process to make defects visible. Ideally, the process stops when a defect occurs so that a person can evaluate what the problem is and decide what to do about it. My first blog post on this topic was Monday and–believe it […]

“The in-station quality pillar [of the Lean system] is attributed to Sakichi Toyoda, who invented the first fully automated loom for making cloth. One of his many inventions along the way was a device that automatically stopped the loom when a single thread broke, which called attention to the problem so humans could fix it […]

When I first learned about the Lean Business Culture, I was impressed by a concept called “In-Station Quality.” Here’s how it’s defined by Jeff Liker: In-station quality (preventing problems from being passed down the line) is much more effective and less costly than inspecting and repairing quality problems after the fact.”  The Toyota Way 2nd […]

“Improvement is not just seen as a win for the company but also as a way for employees to find satisfaction in their jobs and for management to sustain motivation by recognizing real efforts.”  The Lean Strategy by Michael Balle, Daniel Jones, Jacques Chaize, and Orest Fiume (McGraw Hill, 2017) p. 100.

“It turns out that the most motivating way in which people can be involved with their workplace is the improvement of their own work processes.” Leading the Lean Enterprise Transformation (2nd Ed.) by George Koenigsaecker (CRC Press, 2013)