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 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 9

Lean Manufacturing Supply Chain Apparel Compliance 9

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 Productivity Products CAPM 8

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 13

Leadership Innovation Lean Production Learning-by-Doing 13

Harvard Business Review

JUNE 13, 2011

in some of the other areas of management we examined, such as careful monitoring, lean production, and sensible targets. As you can imagine, this does not lead to a feeling of mutual support between management and workers. But the U.S. should not be complacent. Other countries equal or better the U.S.

Management 16

Management Survey Class Lean Production 16

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 8

Career Company IPO Christensen 8

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 10

Automotive Lean Production Marketing Crisis 10

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 13

Supply Chain Long-term Lean Production Globalization 13

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 9

Crisis Health Care Quality Welch 9

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

Lead Change Blog

NOVEMBER 27, 2018

Lean reflects the natural evolution of business and knowledge-based work: data-driven, yet practicing mindfulness in everyday production. At the team level, Lean prioritizes helping members pinpoint inefficiencies and work together to optimize results for the customer.

Efficiency 232

Efficiency Tools Survey Report 232

Harvard Business Review

OCTOBER 15, 2013

costs by using practices commonly associated with mass production and lean production. But by applying principles of mass production and lean production to health care delivery, Indian doctors and hospitals may have discovered the best way to cut costs while still delivering high quality in health care.

Health Care 10

Health Care Cost Lean Production Innovation 10

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 8

Welch Diversity Hedge Chemicals 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 17

Innovation Airlines Six Sigma Lean Production 17

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