Lean Blog Audio: Practical Lean Thinking, Psychological Safety, and Continuous Improvement

http://www.leanblog.org/audio304

It was a sad weekend, hearing about the passing of Paul H O'Neill, Sr. on Saturday. He was 84.

I had the good fortune to meet and spend time with Mr. O'Neill on a few occasions and I'll share some reflections in this post. My condolences go out to his family and friends, and especially to my Value Capture colleagues who worked with him at Alcoa or at the firm over the past 15 years.

Here are his obituaries from the WSJ, the New York Times, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. You can also read more about his life on a memorial page that his family set up and people are sharing memories there.

http://leanblog.org/audio303

This is from the 3rd edition of my book Lean Hospitals. I've copied and pasted from the book with no additional edits, although I'll bold italic some parts for emphasis. I'll some closing thoughts at the end.

For a more complete PDF excerpt, click here (requires Dropbox access).

http://www.leanblog.org/audio302 

Thanks to Elisabeth and the team at GoLeanSixSigma.com for inviting me to contribute some thoughts in this piece:

http://leanblog.org/audio301

It's great to see examples of manufacturing companies being flexible and adaptive in these challenging times. Lean methods are often providing a huge boost in what can be life-saving efforts.

Lean often gets mislabeled as a “low inventory” system (or “zero inventories”) but that misses the point. We don't just lower inventory at all costs (anybody can make that mistake without Lean) — we have to create systems and supply chains that might possibly allow for low inventory.

.....

But back to the one manufacturing company that inspired this post. It was great to see this article (hat tip to Brad Miller):

See more in the blog post (link at top)

http://www.leanblog.org/audio300

I had a phone conversation yesterday with an emergency medicine physician after her shift at an unnamed hospital in an undisclosed state.

She had a number of frustrations to share and she doesn't really have an outlet (and doesn't want her name out there for fear of retaliation). More importantly, this isn't about one institution. She works in a well respected system. So this lack of preparedness and leadership could be widespread. When I posted my concerns about hospital preparedness for Covid-19, I guess they weren't unfounded.

I'm sharing these concerns in a public way because I think it's important to try to inspire other healthcare professionals and improvement specialists who CAN be on site to drive improvements.

I also hope it serves as a reminder to the public to NOT GO to the hospital unless it's a life-or-death emergency right now.  "When should I go to the hospital?" and more questions were be covered in a webinar that was done on Wednesday. Listen, watch, or read a synopsis here.

http://www.leanblog.org/audio299

I normally love the public radio program "Marketplace" and have listened to it (on radio or as a podcast) for 15 years or so.

But, I was very disappointed with this recent piece, which you can read here:

Yes, many factories have been shut down in China, which disrupts global supply chains. However, if you're a company that decided to move all of your production to China (to then ship out to customers around the world), that wasn't a "Lean" strategy.

It's really difficult to support "just in time" delivery over such long distances. If it were a "Lean" approach to move all of your production to China, then Toyota would have done that. But, Toyota didn't.

http://www.leanblog.org/audio298

I've been thinking a lot about hospitals and how they're preparing for the expected tsunami of Covid-19 patients who will need ICU beds and ventilators (when it's expected that there won't be enough of either).

There have also been recent preparations (and ongoing actions) to screen patients who arrive at emergency rooms and outpatient clinics.

I was at one organization last week that was in the process of installing new protocols and procedures in an outpatient clinic setting and I was able to have a tiny amount of input into that. Now, I'm home and trying to help remotely with the situation.

I hope this blog post helps more broadly.

http://www.leanblog.org/audio297

Looking back at a blog post and an article from 2012 and 2014...

http://www.leanblog.org/shingo2020

Thanks to the Shingo Institute for inviting me to facilitate a half-day workshop at the Shingo Conference, being held this year in Orlando, April 16 and 17. The workshop covers concepts and methods from my book Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More.

I hope you can join us for the conference, as this is an event I have enjoyed in the past — and if you're going to be there, please say hi and, better yet, come to my session.

My workshop will be a concurrent session on Friday at 8:30 AM. Here is a video they asked me to make where I share a little bit about the workshop:

http://www.leanblog.org/audio295

Here's an article from Bloomberg BusinessWeek:

GE's Larry Culp Faces Ultimate CEO Test in Trying to Save a Once-Great Company

Very early on, the article mentions Culp's advocacy for "Toyota-style lean manufacturing." Or is he pushing "Danaher-style lean manufacturing" and is that different? And does that matter?

Culp was "in his element" visiting a GE factory in Pensacola -- can that be said about most CEOs?