Jamie Flinchbaugh — on lean culture, transformational leadership, and entrepreneurial excellence

Lean is about waste elimination, or is it?

12.21.2011

Review any company’s slide decks on lean and you’ll likely find a definition for lean. They’re all a little different, but almost all of them center around one common theme: the elimination of waste. So, at least by consensus, this is the definition of lean: the elimination of waste. Of course some are more traditionalist [...]

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My internet wanderings

12.20.2011

It has been a very busy end of year, and that has unfortunately affected my writing time, in addition to a goal of writing (in general) fewer but more substantive blog posts. My last post generated some interesting conversations and was forwarded by many throughout corporate conversations: 4 myths about the principle of “Respect for [...]

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4 myths about the principle of “Respect for People”

12.07.2011

The principle of Respect for People has received greater attention in the lean community over the past several years. Books, blogs, and speeches have all given attention to its importance. Both companies and customers are made up of people, and the best profits and processes in the world are not worth it if they lay [...]

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The Project Box [Guest Post]

11.22.2011

Guest Post: Donald Sweigart worked with “The Body Shop @” which developed the “Star-Link Certified” Lean business model improving Profitability, CSI, and Cycle Time in the Collision Repair Industry. This model is now licensed by a Fortune 100 in it’s Industry-wide Lean Training. His passion is implementing Lean solutions in industry. A project box is [...]

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Mentorship Lives on “In Spirit” [Guest Post]

11.21.2011

Guest Post: Keith Poirier has over 17 years industry experience with a focus on lean/business process improvement. He currently manages an EHS Team for a global design and manufacturing company, and also instructs an Operations Management MBA course. Recently I lost a mentor. To this day, everyday, I use what he taught me. I found [...]

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Building Manager Standard Work

11.18.2011

My latest column for Industry Week, Lessons from the Road, titled “Building Manager Standard Work” has been posted. Here is an excerpt: …People resist building standards in knowledge work because of natural variation. Yet if you already have variation, why would you want to add more by having no structure or routine? No, you can’t [...]

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Today I’m hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #148

11.11.2011

The Management Improvement Carnival is a great practice started by John Hunter of the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog. The Carnival allows us to share what we’ve been reading in other blogs on topics such as lean, continuous improvement, Deming, Innovation, systems thinking, and more. I have previously hosted #80 and #103, but you can [...]

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My notes from the 1st Lean HR Summit

11.08.2011

I spent the day at the 1st-ever Lean HR Summit put on by the great team at Lean Frontiers that created the Lean Accounting Summit and other great conferences. I was the lunchtime keynote today, which you can see more about here. It was great seeing some great familiar faces like Jim Huntzinger and Dwayne [...]

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Lean HR Summit Presentation

11.08.2011

Lean HR Summit is the very first Summit dedicated to the topic, spearheaded by Lean Frontiers, the same gang that runs the Lean Accounting Summit and other successful topic-focused programs. Lean Frontiers believe that, with respect for people as an underlying tenet, the human resources function plays a critical role in the lean organization. Traditional [...]

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How can lean survive a change in top management?

11.07.2011

On The Lean Edge, an lean authors collaboration, questions are posed for us to pontificate on. The latest was: How can lean survive a change in top management? I respond with the following actions. 1. Develop at all levels of the organization. 2. Don’t stop or stall. 3. Have an on-boarding plan. 4. Engage HR [...]

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