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Lean Consumption: Solve the Customer’s Problem Completely

by Pete Abilla on June 24, 2010

how to problem solve

The first principle of Lean Consumption is1: Solve the customer’s problem completely by insuring that all the goods and services work, and work together. The service industry has become a large, complex, and convoluted mix of services that don’t work well together. What companies do, instead, is compensate for the parts not working together through the creation [...]

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Lean Consumption: An Introduction

by Pete Abilla on June 23, 2010

lean solutions, lean for services

The principles of Lean Thinking1 has gone well beyond the factory floor. With the rise of more consumer – provider services, the service industry2 is quite ripe and in need of the principles of Lean Thinking. In an article back in 2005, Womack and Jones expand the principles of Lean Thinking in an article published [...]

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Lean Practitioners at an Ivory Tower

by Pete Abilla on June 22, 2010

The title of this post is made tongue-in-cheek, because this article really celebrates an amazing transformation that is happening at The University of Virginia Darden School of Business. The Dean at Darden, Robert F. Bruner, is helping to transform the University through the application of Lean Thinking. In his words 1, A year ago, I [...]

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Confusing Hospital Visual Management

by Pete Abilla on June 21, 2010

visual management, confusing to patients at hospital

In Visual Management, colors, shapes, and words mean something. Red usually means “danger” or something that is meant to alert the human. When colors and shapes are used improperly, it can cause confusion, disagreement, and mistakes. This is true in most settings, but it is especially true in healthcare and in hospital settings. Take the [...]

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Reconciling Lean and The Theory of Constraints

by Pete Abilla on June 20, 2010

lean and theory of constraints methodology

This is the last part of the series on Lean and The Theory of Constraints, where I originally asked how Lean and the Theory of Constraints can work together. I then proceeded to describe the fundamentals of the Theory of Constraints, followed by an explanation of the fundamentals of Lean Management. This post is my [...]

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Genchi Genbutsu: Go and See, Part 1

by Pete Abilla on June 19, 2010

In Lean Thinking, “Go and See” is more of a management mindset than a technique or tool applied. To contrast, here are two approaches to learning about and solving problems (these are general comments): In the West: problems are learned about and solved in a conference room or in a boardroom; there is distance. Decisions [...]

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Lean Thinking: The Fundamentals

by Pete Abilla on June 18, 2010

lean manufacturing basics and fundamentals

In an earlier post, I asked the question: How can Lean and The Theory of Constraints work together? In my attempt to answer that question, I proceeded to describe the fundamentals of the Theory of Constraints.  In this article, I’ll do my best to explain the fundamentals of Lean Thinking (also known as Lean Management, [...]

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The Theory of Constraints: The Fundamentals

by Pete Abilla on June 17, 2010

In a previous post on Lean and Theory of Constraints, I argued that the decision is not an either/or, but rather “and”.  In other words, there’s room for both and each can be complementary to each other. In this post, I’ll do my best to describe the fundamentals of The Theory of Constraints.  Then, in [...]

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