The Process Improvement Blog

June 6, 2021

Is Your Organization Positioned to Do More With Less?

“Barely more than a year after the coronavirus caused the steepest economic fall and job losses on record, the speed of the rebound has been so […]
May 4, 2021

Lean Practices Can Help Your Business

I started practicing Lean Management in the 1980’s when I was responsible for the efficient operation of 16 adhesives manufacturing plants, and believe me I have […]
April 2, 2021

Reducing Waste Through Lean Management

In business, even small enhancements in productivity and efficiency can have a big impact on your bottom line. Whether it is through reduced lead times, reduced […]
March 9, 2021

Case Study: How to Meet Your Daily Work Plan in Light of Unplanned Interruptions

 A small engineering group of a safety certification organization was responsible for testing roofing and surface burning materials to certify the safety of these products for […]
February 9, 2021

Lean Applies to any Process

Most things of value, whether a service, a drawing, new knowledge, or a manufactured good, are produced as a result of a process. As a process […]
January 19, 2021

Lean Process Improvement for Colleges and Universities

Some years back I conducted a Lean Office Simulation workshop for the staff of the business school at an independent urban university in the Chicago area. […]
January 10, 2021

Exposing Barriers is the First Step to Process Improvement

The project management department of one of our manufacturing clients had been working on lean improvements for about 14 months and had implemented a visual accountability […]
January 1, 2021

Traditional Process Improvement Versus Lean Process Improvement

My own experience provides several examples of the ineffectiveness of traditional process improvement approaches. Long before I was a Lean disciple I worked as a Director […]
November 18, 2020

How to Manage Interruptions in your Office Processes

A $250 million machinery manufacturer contacted us about improving their billing services department. The turnaround time on handling customer disputes was just too long and the […]
October 23, 2020

Micromanage the Process not the People

I had the opportunity to work with a wire drawing manufacturer where the machine operators were tasked with producing defined lot quantities to replenish parts for […]
March 18, 2020

We Must Become Agile in Delivering Process Improvement Results

                In my roles as a Director and Vice President of Quality in Corporate America the biggest issue I […]
April 5, 2020

Marketing Change

When implementing any continuous improvement initiative, like Lean, Six Sigma or business process improvement you must be able to market change. In order for sustained change […]
April 20, 2020

Bad People or Bad Process

How many times do we see managers blame people for defects, delays, scrap, and other quality related problems? Whenever I hear managers pointing the blame I […]
April 27, 2020

Business Agility Profile

WHAT IS BUSINESS AGILITY? Agility has emerged as the successor to mass production. Agility is a comprehensive response to the business challenges of profiting from rapidly […]