Episode page with transcript and more

My guest for Episode #484 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Keith Ingels, who previously joined us in Episode 390. He's the RLM Manager of Solutions & Support Centers — RLM being the Raymond Lean Management system.

He was also a guest with me for Episode 62 of “My Favorite Mistake.” His story and insights were also featured in Chapter 8 of my book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.

In today's episode, we discuss how the Raymond Corporation makes Lean / TPS their own management system, even while being under the Toyota corporate umbrella. RLM focuses on developing people and that starts with leaders. Why does a culture of continuous improvement start with small steps and not requiring ROI calculations for every improvement? We discuss how kaizen participation rates are a leading indicator of employee morale and how absenteeism and turnover are lagging indicators. We talk about that and more…

“Critique the process, not the people.”

Questions, Notes, and Highlights:

Tell us about Raymond Corporation and its place within Toyota Industries
The fit of products with Toyota branded forklifts?
Back in 2020 your title was TPS Manager — has some of the language evolved?
Minor differences? More English words, advising customers to do that and to own their own system
TPS House – foundations
Flow AND quality
Helping people unlearn??
“It's about developing your people” —
If you can see a problem, you can solve a problem
“Critique the process, not the people”
Assumptions vs. real knowledge
“What are you hoping to achieve?” vs. “what problem are you trying to solve?”
Coat hooks – not requiring ROI? – starting with small steps
“You can't put a meter on morale”
Utilizing fresh eyes and new employees for Kaizen
“problem seeing eyes”
Making it safe — problem speaking mouths?
How to help people feel safe to speak up?
Tell us about your “Microburst teaching” approach…
“You have to reinvent that safe environment every day” (psych safety)
How do leaders cultivate the conditions for people to learn from mistakes? Same habits for building trust and kaizen? Anything different?

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in its 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast was also brought to you by Arena, a PTC Business. Arena is the proven market leader in Cloud Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) with over 1,400 customers worldwide. Visit the link arenasolutions.com/lean to learn more about how Arena can help speed product releases with one connected system.

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