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The Failure of “The Livonia Philosophy” at my GM Plant

Deming Institute

General Motors wasn’t my ideal workplace after having read Deming’s Out of the Crisis and learning a bit about Lean manufacturing in college. Mark is also the Vice President of Improvement & Innovation Services for the software company KaiNexus. If possible, I wanted to work in something closer to the Deming environment.

Kaizen 28
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Diet and Exercise Tips from Process Fitness Fanatics

Harvard Business Review

But that hasn't been the case at Danaher, DuPont, and Staples, which have continually improved their operations over many years, to the delight of their customers. Danaher, the $10 billion conglomerate of 600 manufacturing companies, got serious about process improvement after the surprising turnaround of a subsidiary in the mid-1990s.

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The Dirty Little Secret About Digitally Transforming Operations

Harvard Business Review

Operations in a Connected World. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, lean manufacturing was the Big New Idea and it seemed like everyone was learning new tools with Japanese names. He summarized the issue very simply: “We can automate mathematics, we can automate design decisions, but we cannot automate changes in human behavior.”

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How We Revolutionized Our Emergency Department

Harvard Business Review

Rethinking the time-honored processes upon which our daily operations depended would require overcoming the complacency that pervades many large academic medical centers. We enlisted experts in operational effectiveness and service excellence, and both leaders and front line staff were trained on the principles of lean manufacturing.

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Bringing Gender Balance to Nestle Italy

Harvard Business Review

More in my series on showing how the gender balancing program at Nestle , on which I have been working with them, has gone down well even in the more macho countries in which the company operates. To be innovative, we need to be gender balanced," he says. "In It's an innovative internal culture in Italy.".

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An Obstacle to Patient-Centered Care: Poor Supply Systems

Harvard Business Review

My research shows that problems with the supply of equipment and materials — which I call “operational failures” — disrupt care and waste up to 10% of nurses’ workdays. Through a series of observational and experimental studies, I uncovered several reasons for the occurrence of operational failures. Why Do Operational Failures Persist?

System 9
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Breaking the Death Grip of Legacy Technologies

Harvard Business Review

The Future of Operations. automakers took decades to adopt lean production methods despite the obvious benefits from increased productivity and lower work-in-process inventory. NUMMI) in California, did not deploy lean manufacturing across the company for decades despite the clear advantages. Insight Center.