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

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

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

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

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 podcast@leanblog.org 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?”

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

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

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/21  Remastered June 2021 LeanBlog Podcast Episode #21 features our friend and frequent guest, Norman Bodek, noted lean author, consultant, and President of PCS Press. In this Podcast, we talk about how Lean should be good for a company's employees, that Lean and the Toyota Production System are really about building people and investing in them rather than laying people off. Norman's previous Podcast episodes can be found on the Podcast main page. Here is a link to Norman's books via Amazon.com. Show Notes and Approximate Time, Episode #21 2:00 Question from a blog reader: Is lean good for employees in the long term, or is it just good for the company and for management? 2:40 “Unfortunately, many companies are implementing lean to make more money, only…. without understanding the full power of the Toyota model” 3:00 Toyota not only builds cars, it builds people 4:45 Toyota has one team leader for every 4 to 7 people (as opposed to companies that often have a 100 to 1 ratio) 5:20 Toyota's Gary Convis 6:30 Toyota's two pillars: 1) Just-in-Time and 2) Respect for People — the second pillar is now this instead of “Jidoka” (quality at the source)?? 8:30 As Deming said, you have to root out fear from the organization, it's a form of waste that comes from viewing people as expendable 10:15 Examples of how Toyota has invested in people over time, made use of their talents 11:20 When has the “mass production” system ever been good for people? 12:15 Norman's Quick and Easy Kaizen , making work exciting by getting ideas and suggestions from employees 16:50 “I want you to come up with ideas to make your work easier, to make your work more interesting…” that empowers people, as opposed to all decisions coming from the top down 18:15 “What's the ROI of bringing in Norman Bodek?” 19:30 “There's nothing magical that Toyota's doing that American companies can't do!” 19:40 The book Norman likes, Getting the Right Things Done and the Hoshin Kanri process 20:30 Norman, Gary Convis, and the A3 report

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/20  Remastered July 2021 The LeanBlog Podcast is back with episode #20, our guest is Kevin Meyer, the founder of Superfactory Ventures, which can be found at Superfactory.com. You may know Kevin from his popular blog, Evolving Excellence. We'll be talking about a number of lean topics including his upcoming panel moderation at the Kellogg Manufacturing Business Conference, being held in Evanston IL in May. If you enjoy this podcast, I hope you'll check out the rest of the series by visiting the LeanBlog Podcast main page. Show Notes and Approximate Time, Episode #20 1:30 How Kevin got started with Lean 3:00 About the Evolving Excellence Blog 5:00 Blogging as a learning experience 6:00 Kevin will be speaking at Northwestern University, moderating a panel discussion on in-sourcing on on-shoring at their Manufacturing Business Conference 6:20 Companies that have been able to build manufacturing competencies in the U.S., rather than running overseas, looking at total cost, rather than just labor cost 8:00 The conference is May 12, open to registration by the public (main conference page) 8:15 A list of companies Kevin has talked about on the blog 9:10 How can we spread the word and fight the perception that you can't do manufacturing here? 9:45 Kevin's example of a custom ski manufacturer who imports very small quantities from China rather than doing it here 10:30 Danaher as a good example of lean and U.S. competitiveness 10:50 American Leather, building furniture here in Texas 12:20 Kevin's example of Avery Dennison 13:30 Are retailers encouraging lean practices or pushing suppliers overseas? 14:30 Are there some valid reasons for building in China? 15:40 Kevin's example of American Apparel 16:30 New Zealand manufacturing and off-shoring pressures 17:30 Kevin talks about lean and the value of experience in the workforce, Whirlpool example of moving to Mexico and throwing away that experience 20:30 The book from the blog, written by Kevin and Bill Waddell : Evolving Excellence: Thoughts on Lean Enterprise Leadership

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/19 Remastered June 2021 Episode #19 of the Lean Blog Podcast brings the return of Jim Womack. Jim was sitting in Melbourne Australia, where he had been speaking about lean healthcare, a topic that we will discuss in a future podcast. In this podcast, we talk about Jim's reflections on the book The Machine That Changed the World and its recent reissuing by the publisher (with updates). In the podcast, Jim not only talks about Toyota's success, but ways in which Toyota could fail or falter in the future. This is the first part of our discussion, I will release the second part in the upcoming weeks. If you enjoy this podcast, I hope you'll check out the rest of the series by visiting the LeanBlog Podcast main page. Earlier podcasts with Jim can be found here (#12) and here (#13). Show Notes and Approximate Time, Episode #19 1:30 Jim's thoughts on “Machine,” written about “why the teams [GM, Ford, Chrysler] can't win the away games” 1:55 The book before “Machine” was “The Future of the Automobile” (1984) 2:15 The job of “Machine” was to describe a complete business system… “the biggest disappointment… was to have people tell me it was a great book about factories.” 3:00 “You get the feeling that a lot of people read the book, but just that one chapter [on manufacturing].” 3:50 Probably about a million copies sold so far 4:00 The publisher said that 2007 is the year when Toyota is probably going to pass GM, so why don't we re-issue it? 4:20 The new subtitle is “Why Toyota Won” 4:45 “We've learned a lot since then… some of what we told you in the book is not exactly right, so we're thinking of it not exactly as a product recall, but as a model line enhancement. This is what might have been the 1991 model if we had done annual model changes.” 5:30 Is there risk of a backlash with Toyota becoming #1? Jim talks about “ways in which Toyota could lose,” starting with manufacturing 10:50 “They could go native” 10:05 How Toyota could lose with the product development system (book by Al Ward) 10:40 The Jeff Liker book on product development (“they are complements to each other,” Jim says): The Toyota Product Development System: Integrating People, Process And Technology 14:30 How Toyota could fail with their dealer system 15:45 Jim's essay on farmers and hunters 22:40 GM and the X-cars (info here and here) 24:10 Jim asks, “Can Toyota screw up? For the short term, the answer is no, for the long term, absolutely!” 24:30 “Most any other company would be fat, dumb, and happy.” 24:50 What about the excuses the Big 3 make about currency factors, etc.? 25:30 How the Big 3 are like the Detroit Lions

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/18  Remastered July 2021 Here is Episode #18 of the LeanBlog Podcast. My guest today is Eric Christiansen, the President of a translation services company, OmniLingua (more can be found here on their philosophy as a company, being a self-described “Deming Company.”) I was interested in talking with Eric about what it means to be a “Deming Company” and about their implementation of “wiki” tools (ala Wikipedia) for managing their standard work and process documentation. If you enjoy this podcast, I hope you'll check out the rest of the series by visiting the LeanBlog podcast main page. Show Notes and Approximate Time, Episode #18 1:30 Introducing Eric and his company 3:15 What does it mean to be a “Deming company?” 3:40 The Deming System of Profound Knowledge 4:00 The owner of OmniLingua had worked directly with Deming and appreciated the people aspects of his philosophy, how do you treat people with respect? 4:40 Has the annual review been abolished? Sales commissions were abolished, as well as production bonus plans. OmniLingua has a company-wide profit sharing plan instead. 5:15 More examples of the Deming philosophy in day-to-day life, including long-term sole-source supplier relationships 7:00 Is there still internal competition? 7:45 “Are we hiring salespeople who can't sell?” by not having commissions 8:40 How have lean methods evolved at OmniLingua? 10:15 Standard work within the company and the evolution into the use of “Wiki” technology for standard work 13:30 How they modified the process to allow some additional revision and ownership control (after an ISO audit) 15:00 How did it work when everybody had access to modify the standard work documentation? 17:00 How many people have access to the different standard work documents? 19:00 With a Word-document based standard work, people wanted to fancy them up, Wiki keeps people focused on the content 21:30 Deployment started last November (2005)