Insights on Lean Methodology

🔍 Have you ever wondered how some companies keep things running smoothly, even when challenges pop up? Here’s a little insight: They’re often using Lean principles, a set of practices focused on making things simpler, faster, and more effective by cutting out the clutter. But Lean is about more than just efficiency; it’s about connecting people with their work in meaningful ways. Take visual management as an example. It’s all about making information visible and accessible. Imagine Walking into an office and immediately seeing a Kanban board showing where each project stands or an “out-of-stock” card on an inventory shelf. These aren’t just clever tools—they make work easier to understand and create a sense of ownership and accountability. And the results? Employees feel empowered to make decisions on the spot, without waiting for formal reports or meetings. According to recent studies, visual management can increase task accuracy by up to 60% in workplaces that adopt it. Then there’s gemba, or what Toyota calls the “go-and-see” mindset. Instead of guessing what’s going on from an office, managers head to the shop floor. They observe, listen, and understand what’s happening right at the point of action. Toyota Motor Corporation leads the way here, with most of its supervisors spending time on the production floor daily. And it pays off—problems get resolved faster, and solutions are based on firsthand observations, not assumptions. Finally, Continuous improvement is at the heart of Lean. It’s the mindset of always looking for ways to do things better, even if only by a tiny bit. Every tweak, every little fix, adds up over time, ensuring that the company is always moving toward giving customers more value. In fact, companies that embrace continuous improvement report a 15-20% increase in productivity over time, as noted by the Lean Enterprise Institute. And here’s what often goes unnoticed: Lean only works because it values people. Real, day-to-day improvements come from the employees who are involved in the work and whose insights and ideas shape better processes. When people feel heard, productivity grows—by as much as 30% in companies with strong employee engagement practices. So, Next time you hear about Lean, think beyond the jargon. At its core, it’s about creating a work environment where people feel connected to their roles, confident in their abilities, and motivated to make a difference every day. That’s the real impact of Lean.

Manufacturing Leaders Love Talking About Lean—But Who’s Actually Doing It? Everyone loves to talk about Lean. Lean principles. Lean thinking. Lean transformation. But when it’s time to make real changes—where does all that talk go? I’ve seen it too many times: A company maps its value stream, holds a big workshop, talks about reducing waste… and then? Nothing. The shop floor stays the same. Cycle times don’t improve. Bottlenecks remain bottlenecks. Why? Because real Lean isn’t about PowerPoint slides or whiteboard exercises. It’s about getting your hands dirty and fixing what’s broken. It means making practical, real-world changes—not just talking about them in meetings. Here’s what actually moves the needle: ✅ Cutting redundant inspections only where it makes sense, not blindly eliminating quality checks. ✅ Moving tools closer without disrupting ergonomics or safety. ✅ Automating material flow where volume justifies the investment, not just for the sake of automation. ✅ Reducing lead time by fixing scheduling bottlenecks, not just tweaking processes that aren’t the real problem. ✅ Managing inventory to avoid both excess and shortages, instead of forcing a one-size-fits-all JIT approach. ✅ Standardizing work only where it helps, while keeping flexibility where needed. ✅ Fixing quality at the source but making sure operators have the training to do it right. ✅ Empowering frontline workers with real authority to improve processes, not just asking for their “input.” ✅ Synchronizing production with demand without creating unrealistic targets that break the system. ✅ Using real-time data that’s actually useful for decision-making, not just flooding dashboards with numbers no one acts on. Lean isn’t about buzzwords. It’s about execution. The best manufacturers don’t just talk about Lean. They live it. They enforce it. They make it happen. They do VST (Value Stream Transformation), not just VSM! - If it’s not executed, it’s not Lean. ♻️Repost to lead real change!

𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀. We’ve seen it again and again. Boards. Charts. Kaizen events. And yet… no change in thinking. No learning. Lean is not a program. It’s not a system of tools. It’s a system of learning, and that learning happens at the Gemba, not in PowerPoint. You don’t become Lean by doing 5S. You become Lean by asking better questions: 🔍 What is the problem? 🔍 Where is the waste? 🔍 What is the standard? 🔍 How do we help people think deeply about their work? "𝙐𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙡 𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙖, 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙠𝙖𝙞𝙯𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨, 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙣𝙤 𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙣". There is only pretend Lean. And pretend Lean kills culture. It teaches teams that nothing really changes. That “continuous improvement” is just this year’s initiative. The hard truth? 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲. It forces us to confront what we don’t know and how we lead. 👉But when we commit to learning, really learning, with our people… That’s when everything starts to change. 💬 What’s the most important lesson you had to unlearn to lead with Lean? #LeanThinking #Gemba #RespectForPeople #LeanLeadership #ContinuousImprovement #LeanNotTools

Whenever you struggle to explain a Lean concept, look outside of business. Look at how you run your daily life. Case Study: I had a client who would produce as many parts as possible during the week, then change over their equipment on the weekend, only to produce the maximum quantity for the next part number. They could not understand why I wanted them to reduce their changeover time and produce smaller batches more frequently. So the following dialogue occurred: - ME: "How many people have had a barbecue in their backyard?" - Almost all hands were raised. - ME: "If you are making hamburgers and hot dogs, how many only make the hamburgers first?" - No hands were raised. -ME: "So you all must make the hot dogs first, right?" - No response from the team. - "Does that mean you make hamburgers and hot dogs at the same time?" - A few people responded, "YES!" - ME: "Why do you do that?" - RESPONSE: "Because we want our guests to eat together at the same time. Some may want hamburgers, and some may want hot dogs." (I couldn't resist and tell the team that I would want BOTH! lol) - ME: "Please give me a sales order. It looks like this customer has three parts that he is requested to receive on the same date. It looks like he wants hamburgers, hot dogs, and sausage...all at the same time!" The team's lightbulbs came on, and they finally understood that their means of production were not meeting their customers' needs, when they wanted it. LESSON: Go outside of business and use real-life examples. I can guarantee you that we are much Leaner in our personal lives than we are in our business environment! -

🇩🇰 Day 2 in Denmark: Lean Leadership, No Shortcuts, and Seeing the Game Differently “How do you convince a CEO to take lean seriously?” Today, Michael Reinholt Andersen and I sat down with Peter Kürstein, former President of Radiometer (Danaher), and one of the best lean executives I’ve ever known. If Jim Collins were here, he’d call Peter a "Level 5 Leader"—the rare kind who leads with humility and unwavering resolve. Now, in his board roles, he’s playing a different game: coaching CEOs through their lean journeys. And he reminded us of something critical… Every Leader Needs Their “Lean Moment” That moment when lean stops being a concept and becomes a way of seeing the world. 📌 When you see waste for what it is. 📌 When you understand flow at its core. 📌 When you realize there is no finish line—only better ways forward. Until that happens, true buy-in is impossible. You can’t teach it. You have to experience it. And yet, so many leaders resist this moment. They want the results of lean without the commitment to lean. They want a shortcut. 🚨 The Hard Truth: There Are No Shortcuts 💡 You can’t shortcut lean. 💡 You can’t water it down. 💡 You can’t delegate it away as a CEO. The second you start asking, “Does lean apply to my business?”—you’re already convincing yourself that it doesn’t. The best leaders don’t waste time debating lean’s relevance. They find a sensei, stay humble, and commit to learning. The rest? They stay stuck. 💥 Stop Playing Lean. Start Doing Lean. Our second visit today? A machining fabrication plant in the shipping industry. Different industry. Same fundamental challenges. At Lean Focus, we have a saying: 🔹 “If you’ve seen one lean transformation… you’ve seen one lean transformation.” Every journey is unique. But the patterns are always the same. We tackled: ✅ Lead time reduction ✅ Flow improvement ✅ Inventory reduction ✅ Productivity gains ✅ Shifting from work center layouts to process flow-based layouts But the biggest challenge wasn’t the processes. It was the people. 👉 What do you do when your boss is the one who needs convincing? Lean doesn’t work without leadership alignment. Period. And sometimes, the hardest thing isn’t getting operators on board—it’s getting leaders to step up. Denmark Takeaways 🇩🇰 If Day 2 reinforced anything, it’s this: 💡 The companies that win don’t just “do” lean—they become lean. 💡 Lean isn’t a project—it’s how you run the business. 💡 If you’re looking for reasons why lean won’t work in your company, you’ll always find them. Lean has been good to us. We’ve made mistakes, learned hard lessons, and found better ways forward. Now, we get to give it all back. Oh, and one last thing: 🇩🇰 Denmark has a 37-hour workweek and 5 weeks of paid vacation—yet some of the highest productivity in the world. Turns out, working smarter beats working harder.

Go to the Gemba vs. Come to the Mountain In consulting, there’s a temptation to lead with a polished playbook—to bring in frameworks and best practices before fully understanding the unique challenges of a business. While the principles of operational excellence are universal, the path to improvement is never one-size-fits-all. That’s why we go to the gemba—the place where the work happens. -On the shop floor. In the back office. At the front lines. Because every company is different, and you can’t improve what you don’t understand. Going to the gemba isn’t just a methodology—it’s a mindset grounded in humility, respect, and curiosity. It reflects the spirit of Dr. Stephen Covey’s advice: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” It echoes Dr. Deming’s insight: “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, then you don’t know what you are doing." In simple terms, every business is a system of processes. The best solutions start with seeing those processes clearly—in their actual context. It says: • “I’m here to learn before I advise.” • “Your current state matters more than our templates.” • “Let’s build the way forward together, grounded in principles—not prescriptions.” 👉 In a world full of packaged solutions, the power of presence and process-based thinking still sets the foundation for lasting change. https://lnkd.in/diC5NRCt #Leadership #lean #nextlevelpartners #Gemba #LeanThinking #RespectForPeople #SeekToUnderstand #OperationalExcellence #ProcessMatters

➤ Lean Into Leadership: Accountability Through Lean Manufacturing ➤ Transforming Leaders with Lean Principles ➤ Lean Tools: Crafting Accountable and Empowered Leaders "The most important thing about Lean is that it helps us identify the problems that are truly worth solving." – Eric Ries In my experience with Lean Manufacturing, I've seen firsthand how Lean tools can foster a culture of accountability and ownership among leaders. Here’s how: - Visual Management: Tools like Kanban boards make responsibilities and progress visible, promoting transparency and accountability. - Standardized Work: Establishing clear, standardized processes helps leaders understand their roles and responsibilities better. - Continuous Improvement (Kaizen): Encourages leaders to constantly seek improvements, taking ownership of processes. - Root Cause Analysis (RCA): Tools like the 5 Whys and Fishbone Diagrams empower leaders to solve problems at their source, instilling a deeper sense of responsibility. - Gemba Walks: By regularly visiting the actual place where work happens, leaders stay connected to the ground realities, fostering a hands-on approach. Implementing Lean tools effectively can transform leaders into more accountable, proactive members of the team. #LeanManufacturing #LeanLeadership #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership #OperationalExcellence Leaders, how have Lean tools enhanced your accountability and ownership? Share your experiences and insights.