Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 29, 2013

Ford shifted the auto industry from craft to mass production, and the Japanese later took it a step further to lean production. The same can be said of other procedures that might lend themselves to mass or lean production. By making only one type of car (Model T) in volume, he cut unit costs dramatically.

Health Care 11

Health Care Cost Lean Production Offshoring 11

Harvard Business Review

AUGUST 23, 2012

Just as the "quality" and "lean production" movements of the 80s and 90s required quality to be designed — rather than inspected — in, innovators have got to demonstrate greater ingenuity and integrity around how they integrate real-world testing into their projects and processes. These pathologies are nothing new.

Leadership 15

Leadership Innovation Lean Production Learning-by-Doing 15

Harvard Business Review

MAY 20, 2014

And Toyota changed the auto industry forever with a systemic process innovation (the lean production system). Apple has disrupted several industries using new business models, not new technologies. Finally, innovation (and hence strategy) is not just the CEO’s job.

Bottom-up 11

Bottom-up Business Model Lean Production Innovation 11

Harvard Business Review

MAY 26, 2016

The initiative sought to improve manufacturing operations — to deliver high-quality products in relatively small batches and on shorter production deadlines. Our research focused not on the success of this initiative, per se , but on the impact of lean production on the workplace.

Lean Manufacturing 13

Lean Manufacturing Supply Chain Apparel Compliance 13

Harvard Business Review

MARCH 28, 2011

Japan is famous for its lean production systems and efficient supply chains. Large companies such as Toyota and Sony were forced to halt production not because of damage to their own factories, which were quickly checked and ready to go back online, but because they were dependent on a small number of parts from suppliers in Tohoku.

Supply Chain 15

Supply Chain Long-term Lean Production Globalization 15

Harvard Business Review

NOVEMBER 9, 2012

Having utterly failed, GM undertook a medium-tech, $200 million joint venture with Toyota to implement "lean-production" methods relying more heavily on workers' skills — and boosted productivity 40%.

Automotive 15

Automotive Lean Production Marketing Crisis 15

Harvard Business Review

APRIL 22, 2015

Many companies still compete this way and there continue to be successors to Taylorism, including business process reengineering and lean production. Some companies brought together Six Sigma and lean production into “Lean Six Sigma” as a way of competing with both lower costs and higher quality.

Six Sigma 8

Six Sigma Company Lean Production Taylor 8

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 12, 2012

Danaher, a smaller but very profitable conglomerate with a diverse range of manufacturing businesses, has a very different set of strengths; it applies its distinctive lean production system to a variety of product sectors, often through companies that it acquires and then transforms.

Welch 13

Welch Diversity Hedge Chemicals 13

Harvard Business Review

JANUARY 15, 2014

First recognize if the product is solving a real problem and people will buy it, then figure out how to scale production and distribution in situations of success. As a result, our predictions for new products are either too high or too low, and we waste resources, customer goodwill, and employee motivation.

Black-Scholes 8

Black-Scholes Products Productivity CAPM 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Lean Product Development and Customer Development processes) decreases the chance of a startup’s failure. While developing expertise is the most certain way to reduce entrepreneurial risk, many other strategies exist: Process — Using the right processes to deal with market uncertainty (e.g.

Career 10

Career Company IPO Christensen 10

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 17, 2013

They created and maintained a close connection to frontline staff — what Jim Womack , the expert in lean production and thinking, calls “going to gemba ” — Japanese for “the actual place.”. At Mid Staffs, instead of this essential connection, there was a yawning gap.

Crisis 11

Crisis Health Care Quality Welch 11

Harvard Business Review

JULY 27, 2015

In the 1980s, our organizations learned a great deal about how to improve productivity, quality, and costs from Japanese practices. A few decades ago, U.S. companies were making progress on the operations front, but now they seem to have lost their way—and business schools are in a position to help set them right again. Let me explain.

Lean Production 8

Lean Production Operations Health Care Talent Management 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 28, 2015

automakers took decades to adopt lean production methods despite the obvious benefits from increased productivity and lower work-in-process inventory. Even General Motors, which had a bird’s eye view of the Toyota Production System from its joint venture with Toyota at New United Motors Manufacturing Inc.

Technology 8

Technology Depreciation Christensen Short-term 8

Harvard Business Review

FEBRUARY 10, 2015

More and more companies are adopting software and product development frameworks like Agile , Scrum , and Kanban — which promote quick, iterative, lean production — to deliver higher quality products, faster.

Project 8

Project Management Agility White Paper 8

Harvard Business Review

MAY 30, 2012

There's something about the culture of business that tends toward excess — in financial markets, to be sure, but also in the "market" for new ideas and management techniques.

Innovation 21

Innovation Airlines Six Sigma Lean Production 21

Harvard Business Review

MAY 2, 2016

Generally, what we see is the country where the final assembly of a product took place. Almost every sophisticated manufacturer uses some kind of lean production system that pulls raw materials in from a warehouse. If you were to walk through some of those foreign factories, you would get a very different picture.

Supply Chain 8

Supply Chain Globalization Cost Efficiency 8