Elated by an overwhelming experience at a restaurant, the author decides to examine it using the Kano Model. This Model, developed by Dr. Noriaki Kano, is designed to understand the aspects of customer satisfaction better. The first basic “Musts” curve reveals the most essential customer expectations, achieving which the customer would be neutral, but not […]

 There are endless options for how to engage an organization, even though if you read most books that preceded our “Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean,” you would think there was just one roadmap: Train people, do value stream maps, deploy 5S, and perform kaizen events.There must be a better way. 1. Do not, do not, do […]

Henry Ford achieved world-class results with three key performance indicators (KPIs), none of which were financial. His successors’ changeover to financial metrics, on the other hand, caused the company to forget what we now call the Toyota production system. Henry Ford’s creation of what we now call lean manufacturing is an excellent reason to listen […]

Many organizations have, with varying degrees of success, tried to implement project management in their organizations. The success rate depends on the awareness of the people undergoing the Lean Six Sigma Program. If the assumption is that LSS is mere flavor of the month, the implementation and outcome takes a hit. Once the awareness is […]

When the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy triggered a global recession, Toyota Motor Company lost money. In December of that year, with a photo of Toyota board members bowing in shame, a New York Times headline trumpeted, “Toyota Expects its First Loss in 70 years.” “They’ve caught the same cold that Detroit has caught,” said Christopher […]

  Superintendent Patricia Greco of the School District of Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin claimed that “Education as a profession is attempting to jump from initiative to initiative rather than trying to imbed principles of improvement into the system.” In a world where change, innovation and process excellence have become convention; why is education – the root […]

Imagine walking through a business and discovering that all of the employee communication boards are six months out of date. Imagine that the red, yellow, green production status lights were all set to green and then overhearing an employee say that he could not remember the last time someone used the yellow or red status […]

  Given the on-going legislative upheaval within financial services, it’s no wonder that there’s a lot of noise surrounding Operational Excellence. The question on our lips though is this: Is it just noise, or are there real moves towards achieving the excellence the industry says it aspires to? This year, ahead of Operational Excellence Financial […]

All too often, decisions are made based on the opinions of those who management deems the “smartest” on the team. When they say, “I think…,” this causes executives to base their decisions on the esteem with which they hold that individual, rather than the value and integrity of the suggestion itself. At the outset of […]

  Companies have for years implemented various methodologies for improving processes in order to increase efficiency, reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction and ultimately, drive better business results. The Twentieth century saw some of the greatest advances in “process” thinking, with an emphasis on continuous improvement. These include the development of Statistical Process Control, the Toyota […]

This question is often one of the more controversial and hotly debated topics with companies striving to achieve and sustain excellence. There is certainly no right or wrong answer here, but I’m happy to share my personal experience with this dilemma. It’s a very company- and facility-specific set of circumstances that must be understood before […]

Identifying the best ways to encourage teams to come up with suggestions of performance improvement, recognize the tools and tricks which are best to identify changes and rewarding employees who contribute to performance improvement, could be a time consuming task. However it is extremely important to create an environment where the changes sustain and performance […]

      If you want to solve problems in your business and see positive results, then start asking the right questions. How many times have you and your colleagues identified a business critical problem, conducted intense brainstorming sessions, developed a seemingly flawless improvement strategy, and gone forth to execute the plan — only to […]

Operational discipline means complying with a set of well-thought-out and well-defined processes, and consistently executing them correctly. Striving to achieve operational excellence is one of the most important contributors to an organization’s sustainable performance and growth. But what exactly is “operational excellence”? It isn’t necessarily a destination; rather, it is an ongoing journey that organizations […]

Practitioners of Lean Six Sigma highlight 10 mistakes that can hamper the implementation of process improvement culture within an organization. #1: Lack of leadership focus: Only when the leader is focused towards process improvement, will the management and employees be forced to participate in following the same culture. It is but a very critical requirement […]

Lean first entered the healthcare industry 15 years ago; however, people are still a little terrified as to how its implementation will affect them. Six Sigma on the other hand has been there for even longer in healthcare industry. Originally, hospital organisations didn’t know much about Lean so they tried to find out about it […]

In a financial services company a business unit was undergoing a serious and sudden productivity crisis. The reports showed the numbers which validated the plummeting performance and the company’s president wanted to know the reason of the productivity crisis and what would be done to fix it. After the review of the report, the vice […]

There are times when we cannot comprehend an obvious problem that is right in front of the eye. There are also times when the same set of data is interpreted differently by two sets of people. Lean practitioners conclude that it is because our brain is not into reality. Although occasions of brain not being […]

The word resistance is often used to describe people who choose not to support the change management plan. While they do hamper the plausible improvement of an existing system, but branding them as resistance, has its own negative effects. In fact, as soon as they are branded, it leaves little scope for understanding them, and […]

The Amazon controversy of using unmanned aircraft – drones – to deliver packages to customers in 30 minutes or less shows that, when it comes to innovation, the world is divided into two types of personalities. These are referred to as the 2 P’s – the first one stands for ‘Possibilities’; this is a set […]

There seems to be a fundamental difference between the words ‘kaizen’ and ‘kaikaku’. While ‘kaizen’ is used for small changes, ‘kaikaku’ refers to a major overhaul of the entire process. But, Toyota understands the two terms differently. It practices to undergo many small changes, for one big change. An example that Toyota set, is when […]

Ever thought about why an ice cube floats? Or, for that matter, an iceberg? Why does a pond freeze from the top down, rather than the bottom up, as it would if it were filled with almost any other liquid? And what does any of this have to do with change management? It has to […]