Lean Roundup #46 - March, 2013

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of March, 2013.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.

Who is the Customer for a Commodity? – Gregg Stocker says Lean professionals must understand the company and its processes before attempting to teach or coach people about continual improvement.

What Does Respect for People Actually Mean? – John Hunter explains that “respect for people” does not mean making anyone feel uncomfortable but rather the contrary.

Lean Product Development – Dan Jones shares 5 key lessons when implementing Lean in product development.

Organizing to Achieve the Strategy – Bill Waddell answers the debate about organizing value streams around products or customers by saying it is important to first understand your strategy.

Eliminating Key Points – Mark Rosenthal talks about breaking down the work with TWI job instructions advocating that key points are mistake proofing opportunities.

Solving the "Sustainment Problem" – Jim Vataralo explains that for improvement to take hold there must be a balanced approach like that of a 3 legged stool.

The Three Rules for Rules – Jon Miller shares 3 rules that serve as a guideline for creating rules that are the foundation of Lean and continuous improvement.

Lucy and the Football - Do Your Actions Match Your Words – Jamie Wilson talks about the importance of leaders “talking the talk” and “walking the walk”.

Where There is Fear You Do Not Get Honest Figures – John Hunter discussed the issues that occur when you lead with fear and how you can combat that.

Don't Let Metrics Trump Culture – Bill Waddell shares a good story that illustrates the importance of empowering employees to make decisions to help customers.

Reflection - The Breakfast of Champions – Pascal Dennis reminds us that reflection is key to continuous improvement as an aspect of plan-do-check-adjust.

Working With People – Matt Wrye provides several ways to deal with people since different people need to be handled in different situations.

Standardized Work: How My White Board Keeps Me On Track - Pete Abilla shares his white board that he uses to be productive and accountable and his associated standard work.

Policy Deployment And The Coaching Chain  - Mark Rosenthal captures the important points on policy deployment and their link to coaching from a recent LEI talk.

In Business Improvement, The Small Stuff = BIG DEAL – Antonio Ferraro writes about the impact that small improvements have when eliminating waste and improving customer value.

Systems vs Tools: A Lean Lesson From The Big Bang Theory – Jeff Hajek talks about the need of both systems and tools but advocates to focus on the basics.

Train To The What, How, Why Model Then... – Tracey Richardson explains how to change standards by training to the what-how-why model when you make changes then there is more time to spend on proactive problem solving than reactive.

We Do Not Think About The Way Toyota Does Standards – Mike Rother explains a standard as an ideal target condition you want to achieve rather than a current best practice.

Managers Must Be Teachers... – Michael Balle says lean managers must be teachers of which training is a key responsibility and operators standards and standardized work are training tools.

From The Lean Edge: How Do I Change The Standard? – Dragan Bosnjak answers the question by explaining the rate of change is based on capacity of training.