The Root Idea of All Lean Thinking
"The root idea of all Lean thinking is kaizen: continuous, small step-by-step improvements done by the people who do the work themselves." Toyota experts call this "Kaizen-mind." It means that…
Thinking “naturally” of improvement
"The next value is the development of a Kaizen Mind — you think naturally in terms of improvement. You reveal openly any imperfections — any waste, anything that does not…
Improving Our Work…and Improving My Blog!
(See below for how I plan to improve my blog posts.) What is an "Improvement?" An improvement is a CHANGE that makes our work easier, safer, faster, or better quality.…
“Learning” is the Key
"In fact, we now know that the Toyota Production System is a learning framework for helping employees to improve their work and to work together to create the value customers…
Improvement and Job Satisfaction
"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…
The Most Motivating Way
"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…
The Benefit of Kaizen (Improvement)
"The real benefit of a kaizen effort goes way beyond the performance improvement you (almost) always get. The value lies in the learning for the team (they learn how to…
Kaizen
"The root idea of all Lean thinking is kaizen: continuous, small step-by-step improvements done by the people who do the work themselves." The Lean Strategy by Michael Balle, Daniel Jones,…
Embrace Both Stability and Change
"Lean thinking, on the other hand, is about embracing both stability (standards) and change (kaizen literally means 'change for the better') at the team level, where work really happens." The…
Make Improvement Possible
"As [Misaki] Imai explained so well in [his book] Kaizen, it is impossible to improve any process until it is standardized. If the process is shifting from here to there,…