Lean Blog Interviews: Real-World Lean Leadership Conversations in Healthcare and Beyond

By Mark GrabanBusiness Management

Lean Blog Interviews: Real-World Lean Leadership Conversations in Healthcare and Beyond episodes

August 04, 2007Interview with Dr. Sami Bahri, The World’s First Lean Dentist on How It’s Transformed His Practice *
* Remastered audio June 2021
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/29
LeanBlog Podcast #29 features a very special guest, Dr. Sami Bahri, “The World's First Lean Dentist.”
If you're thinking “what can I learn about lean from a Dentist?”, please listen in. I think you'll be amazed and will learn a ton. I've really enjoyed the two chances I've had to talk with Dr Bahri, including this podcast session and I've been very impressed with his approach to lean.
He's gone back to all of the source texts, including Shingo and Ohno and has really had to figure it out for himself, as opposed to following some sort of cookbook approach. I particularly appreciate how he involves his employees and staff… it's a great example we can all learn from.
If you have questions or comments for Dr. Bahri, he's agreed to a follow on podcast. You can email me at [email protected] or visit leanpodcast.org to leave a comment or read some linked articles about Dr. Bahri.
Keywords and Main Points, Episode #29
Learning about Lean and figuring out, over time, how to apply it to a dental office.
How Dr. Bahri is able to take care of patient needs all in a single visit (not coming back for separate follow on appointments).
How Dr. Bahri has engaged his workforce, through Lean, to improve productivity, job satisfaction, and employee engagement.
Lean as a never-ending journey toward perfection, an experimental process.
Learn how Dr. Bahri's office creating an innovative “flow manager” position.
38 min
July 29, 2007Norman Bodek on the 1st Anniversary of the Podcast *
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/28
Remastered audio June 2021
LeanBlog Podcast #28 features our friend and frequent guest, Norman Bodek, noted lean author, consultant, and President of PCS Press. This also celebrates the 1 year anniversary of the Podcast, which featured Norman as our first guest. As I've given him credit for previously, the Podcast really was Norman's idea when he said I should do "radio interviews" with him. Thankfully, this has turned into a series of interviews with others that I have enjoyed immensely.
Summary of Norman's talk at the TWI Summit and the "pledge of continuous improvement."
Gantt's book "Organizing Work" (via Google Books) -- the stakeholder groups that a business must serve (including community)
Lifetime employment and the obligation for good management
Can you have a workplace with no bosses? Example of a Skippy peanut butter plant
Is the ultimate goal automation? Norman's thoughts on that
Managers' resistance to change as a separate type of waste?
Being on the floor all the time as a manager
Norman talking about "conscious learning" (his next book)
35 min
June 18, 2007 Jim Baran, Value Stream Leadership
LeanBlog Podcast #27 is the second part of two with Jim Baran, the Owner of Value Stream Leadership, a leading recruiting firm that specializes in Lean talent. In this part of the discussion, we focus more on Lean career paths for Lean leaders and practitioners, how to differentiate yourself and how to progress in your Lean career.
If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at [email protected] or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast. Visit www.leanpodcast.org for themain LeanBlog Podcast page with all previous episodes and visit the Lean Blog at www.leanblog.org.
33 min
June 18, 2007Jim Baran, Value Stream Leadership on Lean Careers *
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/27
Remastered July 2021
LeanBlog Podcast #27 is the second part of two with Jim Baran, the Owner of Value Stream Leadership, a leading recruiting firm that specializes in Lean talent. In this part of the discussion, we focus more on Lean career paths for Lean leaders and practitioners, how to differentiate yourself and how to progress in your Lean career.
Keywords and Main Points, Episode #27
Advice for lean job seekers
When should you move on? How can a recruiter tell if the xlack of lean success was due to lack of lean understanding versus the failings of the organization they were a part of?
Lean accounting and lean product development experience, “transactional lean”
Lean in a smaller company provides many opportunities
The importance of selling yourself (and selling lean ideas), keeping track of your accomplishments and what happened
How can Jim try to tell if a client would be (or is) a good lean company? Walking the shopfloor…
Lean Certification value?
Lean recruiting, Value Stream Leadership, career management
33 min
June 02, 2007Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth on Visual Workplace and Visual Thinking *
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/26
Remastered July 2021
Episode #26 of the LeanBlog Podcast brings us Dr. Gwendolyn Galsworth, of the Visual Lean Institute. She is the author, most recently of the book Visual Workplace, Visual Thinking: Creating Enterprise Excellence Through the Technologies of the Visual Workplace.
Ironically enough, we will be using this audio-only format to discuss visual methods in the workplace and how that ties into Lean and the Toyota Production System. Her book has hundreds of color photos and illustrations of effective visual methods, so if you find this discussion helpful, I hope will follow up with the book. The book is an inventive and unique approach to visual management and helping people work more effectively. One small thing I really appreciate is how her case studies and examples from factories always have a photo of one of the value-adding associates who was involved in the work.
Show Notes, Links, and Keywords Episode #26
Norman Bodek, visual workplace, poka yoke, visual guarantees, visual order, visual inventiveness, visuality
“I-Driven”: Knowing what information that individual needs to work well
Borders, home addresses, ID labels
Right angles aren't necessarily the best for workplace layouts
“Information deficits” are the symptom, deficits cause waste and “motion without working”
Six categories of missing information: the missing “where,” the missing “what,” etc.
Video training system
The counter productive 5S initiative that we discussed (previous blog link)
“The obedience paradigm” versus empowering people
The older, existing website
Forum on the new website
33 min
May 22, 2007Factory Physics, Flow, and the Myth of “Efficiency” — with Dr. Mark Spearman *
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/25
Remastered July 2021
For Episode #25, I'm pleased to have Dr. Mark Spearman, Founder and President/CEO of Factory Physics, Inc. (www.factoryphysics.com). You may know Dr. Spearman from his book, co-authored with Dr. Wally Hopp, Factory Physics. If there is ONE operations management textbook to own, this is it (it's well worth the cost). I was fortunate, as an Industrial Engineering undergrad at Northwestern, to take Dr. Spearman's operations course. The introduction given about Lean and the Factory Physics / Little's Law concepts (among others) have served me very well during my career. In the Podcast, we talk about his company, Factory Physics, and the work he is doing today in the manufacturing world.
Show Notes, Links, and Keywords Episode #25
Keywords: Throughput, Lean Six Sigma, Lean, WIP, work in process, continuous improvement, variation, flow, Dell Computer
Dr. Spearman explains The 3 Buffers: Inventory, Time, and Capacity
29 min
May 06, 2007Jim Womack on GM, Ford, Toyota, and the Meaning of Lean *
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/24
Remastered July 2021
Episode #24 of the LeanBlog Podcast is the 2nd part of my recent conversation with Jim Womack, of the Lean Enterprise Institute. In this episode, we talk about the state of the auto industry, from the time of The Machine That Changed the World through today. Who does Jim think is in the best shape among the "Detroit Three?" Jim also answers some questions from Lean Blog readers. If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at [email protected] or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast. Please visit our websites, www.leanpodcast.org and the Lean Blog main page at www.leanblog.org.
Show Notes and Approximate Time, Episode #24
1:50 “We had some brief hopes for Ford in ‘Machine'”
2:20 “Mind of Toyota” book is a Womack must-read: “it's a great book, harder than heck to read” Inside the Mind of Toyota: Management Principles for Enduring Growth
3:00 Womack on GM's decline
4:15 What about the Ford Atlanta plant going from most efficient to shut down? The Taurus story, original development took 7 years when Toyota was taking only 3. At least it was what the public wanted and was easier to put together than the comparable GM product.
7:00 GM's political footprint is shrinking as factories are closed outside of Michigan and Ohio, while Toyota's is growing with factory expansion.
9:15 BBC series on the auto industry and lean production, pulling the cord much more at Toyota, and how people were scared at the Ford plant to pull the cord (mistrust between workers and management).
10:15 “If it were just a plant-on-plant competition, they [Ford] would be OK, they've learned enough… all over the company, the managers are not pulling the andon cords.”
10:40 More on Ford management and the “corrupt” Ford culture
12:10 How things stand with GM today, according to Jim
12:50 “Ford and Chrysler have a different magnitude of problem than GM.” If not for the legacy problems, GM would be OK, not a world-beater… “not as good as they should be.”
14:30 “Ford and Chrysler's problem is management.”
14:45 Question from the blog, from John Hunter, “What 3 publicly traded companies have the deepest understanding and execution of Lean?” Danaher, “can't vouch for it personally….” Tried to put them in the Lean Thinking, but was escorted off the property because the President declared they had deep secrets….
16:15 Article about Danaher from Business Week
17:00 G.E. has been a “make the numbers” company as opposed to a “fix the company” company, says Jim. But now GE is saying they have to be like Toyota… “is there anything beyond Six Sigma or even to Six Sigma?”
18:25 Lots of other little guys out there, privately held. “Wish I could point to other examples of large companies…”
19:00 LEI is doing some research for how to take a traditional mass production mentality company and transition them to a lean management approach, what methods do you have to implement?
20:00 “The world is pretty Dilbert-like.”
20:30 “I wish I could rattle off the 14 companies who have actually done it…. No stock tips.”
20:50 From Joe Wilson, what about “Lean and Mean? Do you wish you had picked a different word than Lean?
21:15 “It also rhymes with green…. A word is a word, you have to pick something.” Jim meant it to describe “how to do more with less” but many have spun it into “how to do less with a whole lot less, including people.”
22:00 “If lean is taken on by managers who are clueless to the real meaning, well then over time, the meaning becomes the meaning that people deduce from the behavior of those managers. I can't do anything about that.”
23:00 “Lean got us out of the nationalism and ethnic focus,” that it had something to do with Japan. “Lean” was designed to focus on an objective measure of performance. (the term coined by Jon Krafcik)
24:40 “Sorry that so many clueless people [made lean “mean”]… it's a lot of stupid meanness, where you try to hurt others and end up hurting yourself.” Toyota was about growth, not trying to get rid of people. “Where you get into the problem with Lean is when you have these big behemoths that are fading fast…”
26:10 Jim spent a week in Australia looking at healthcare organizations… “How would Toyota run healthcare?” “Toyota treats car parts better than a hospital treats its patients, and treat people better than hospitals treat their staffs.”
26:45 “We're going to bankrupt every company with our healthcare practices.”
27:45 Far more than half of the visitors to the LEI website and those signing up for workshops have nothing to do with manufacturing… “How would Toyota run Starbucks?”
30 min
April 28, 2007Group Health Cooperative, Lean Leaders and Executive Panel Discussion *
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/23
Remastered July 2021
pisode #23 of the LeanBlog Podcast features a panel of Lean leaders from the Group Health Cooperative, a consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that coordinates care and coverage. Based in Seattle, Group Health and its subsidiary health carriers, Group Health Options, Inc. and KPS Health Plans, serve over 500,000 members in Washington and Idaho. GHC has been on a Lean journey, as documented on their “Daily Kaizen” blog. Joining us on the Podcast are three of their Lean Leaders:
James Hereford, Executive Vice President, Strategic Services and Quality
Dr. Ted Eyan, Medical Director of Health Informatics and Web Services
Lee Fried, Manager of the Strategic Consulting team at Group Health
In this Podcast, they discuss how GHC got started with Lean, their early “point improvement” successes, and their transition to a more systemic approach to a Lean management system through their “model line” efforts.
Show Notes and Approximate Time, Episode #23
Show Notes and Approximate Time, Episode #23
1:15 James: Overview of the Group Health Cooperative (GHC)
2:00 Lee: How GHC got started on their Lean Journey in 2004, initial drivers
3:05 “RPIW” = Rapid Process Improvement Workshop (like a kaizen event)
3:30 Improved cost, quality, and delivery at the same time, in the lab, “wasn't believed possible in healthcare” and got senior management attention
3:55 Started with “point improvements”
4:15 Brought in some external consultants, education for the senior leadership team
4:30 Then moved from point improvements to large cross-departmental projects (e.g., health plan and delivery)
6:12 Looked at how to optimize the Electronic Medical Record system (involving IT and caregiver teams)
7:30 The model line, moving beyond point improvements and into cultural change –claims processing and customer service center (700 employees), HPA = Health Plan Administration
8:30 Had to make sure they weren't losing gains from earlier lean efforts — started doing more to fully ingrain lean concepts into the management practices and culture
9:15 Three components to the “Model Line” 1) Standard work of the daily management system 2) Value Streams and RPIW's to “turn the organization on it's side,” from functional organization to process organization and 3) hoshin kanri (policy deployment), building discipline around planning (goals and the means)
10:40 Ted: Have you had to adapt the lean management model to fit into a healthcare environment?
11:00 “Copy the thinking and the philosophy, not the tools”…. “What's the tool you can use? Your Brain!”
11:30 Focused on providing the right care at the right time, rather than relying on technology (or relying on “tried and true” technology)
12:15 “Lean Thinking blew my mind, everything had a corollary in medical care.”
12:30 “Toyota puts a lot of care and compassion into building cars, and so do we in taking care of people.”
12:48 “There things we don't want flexibility around” – certain medical situations that call for standard care
13:20 How did GHC try to get physicians on board and participating with Lean? “Patient at the center of care” is easy to get agreement with
14:00 “We want to take care of patients, and this helps you do it better… the system is more responsive.”
14:42 James: Are there advantages to being an integrated delivery system? “Our opportunity is so much greater…”
16:30 Ted: “If it can't be done at Group Health, it can't be done anywhere.”
16:50 Can GHC create more value through proactive or preventative health measures, ala TPM?
17:20 The goal is “lifelong health for our members… working with patients before they get sick.”
17:45 James: What have the benefits and results of the Model Line area been?
18:35 ThedaCare and John Touissant showed great humbleness even with their success
19:00 Doing as many kaizen events as you can wasn't enough.” Wanted to fundamentally change the leadership model, not the “all knowing and all doing” with the staff “checking their brain at the parking lot.”
20:00 The VP over the HPA area fully embraced Lean and change himself20:45 Had a rigorous, step-by-step method of teaching the skills and doing daily practice. The biggest change was getting the middle managers and VP to change the way they interacted with supervisors, that was the foundation for the operational changes (workcells, etc.)
22:00 Lee: RPIW's changed the thinking of a lot of folks, but it didn't get high enough to change the behavior of the leaders
22:50 Changing core thinking before changing core processes has led to better sustainment
23:10 James: Where GHC hopes this goes… the Model Line needs to be a model to learn from, applied in other areas, forcing the organization to think more about value streams and less about traditional budgeting processes
24:00 GHC now has a place in GHC to see lean (as opposed to continued visits to Genie or Virginia Mason Medical Center)
27:00 What kind of feedback are you getting from employees about Lean? (lab example)”This is the most amazing experience I have ever had in all of my experience at Group Health”
29:00 Ted on helping doctors and professionals meeting their goals
30:00 Lee: it can be hardest on the middle managers, having to change their ways
35 min
April 12, 2007 Allan Wilson, Factory Logic
Episode #22 of the Podcast is a discussion with Allan Wilson, CEO of Factory Logic, a software company that was acquired by SAP late last year. Allan is now the VP of Lean Manufacturing Operations for SAP. We talk about the role of technology and software in a Lean implementation. In the interest of full disclosure, I worked for Factory Logic a few years back, including time under Allan's leadership, but I have no financial interest in the company or products.
If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at [email protected] or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast. Visit www.leanpodcast.org for all episodes.
31 min
April 12, 2007Allan Wilson, CEO of ”Factory Logic” (Acquired by SAP), on Lean Software *
Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/22
Remastered July 2021
Episode #22 of the Podcast is a discussion with Allan Wilson, CEO of Factory Logic, a software company that was acquired by SAP late last year. Allan is now the VP of Lean Manufacturing Operations for SAP. We talk about the role of technology and software in a Lean implementation.
In the interest of full disclosure, I worked for Factory Logic a few years back, including time under Allan's leadership, but I have no financial interest in the company or products.
Show Notes and Approximate Time, Episode #22
0:20 Background and history on Factory Logic
2:00 Using software to help standardize processes in a Lean factory, including Johnson Controls, a key customer
5:20 Value proposition for the software on the factory floor (now known as SAP's XLPO product, or “Lean Planning and Operations”)
6:00 CONWIP (constant work in process)
6:20 POLCA (not the dance!)
7:30 The SAP acqusition of Factory Logic, what will the impact be? 12,000 manufacturing companies use SAP
12:20 The XLPO/Factory Logic applications will still integrate to other ERP systems
13:00 What about the mindset of having a choice between Lean and technology, that many Lean folks are against technology/software. What about the Toyota Way principle of using technology “that supports your people and processes”?
16:30 XMII definition
19:00 Are Lean people becoming more accepting of technology?
22:00 What are some of the examples where a large company struggles to roll out Lean in a consistent way across plants?
22:30 BTR = Build to Replenishment
24:00 Building a consistent Lean model throughout your global company
31 min

About Lean Blog Interviews: Real-World Lean Leadership Conversations in Healthcare and Beyond

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Lean Blog Interviews: Real-World Lean Leadership Conversations features thoughtful, in-depth discussions with leaders, authors, executives, and practitioners who are applying Lean thinking in the real world.