Wlei - Lean Enterprise Institute's Podcast

Josh Howell and Mark Reich, LEI President and Chief Engineer Strategy, respectively, speak with Jamie Bonini, President of the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC), a not-for-profit corporation affiliated with Toyota Motor North America. Since 1992, TSSC has shared Toyota know-how with more than 500 small- to mid-sized companies, government entities, and non-profits.   This week’s discussion kicks off a month of The Management Brief content around the role of continuous improvement (CI) groups in lean management. As the leader of TSSC, Jamie interacts with many organizations’ CI groups as they apply basic concepts of the Toyota Production System (TPS) and helps others develop CI groups for that objective.   Prior to Toyota, Jamie worked at Chrysler and DaimlerChrysler, spending a decade applying TPS there and believing he understood it well. “I was absolutely stunned and amazed by how much more there was to TPS than I was able to learn by reading externally and even working with former Toyota people

In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we speak with Sebastian Fixson, PhD, of Babson College, on mentoring the next generation of leaders in lean product and process development (LPPD). Sebastian is the founding faculty director of the doctor of business administration) program and professor of innovation and design, at Babson, where he focuses on helping people and organizations build innovation capabilities.  Jim Morgan, senior advisor on LPPDat LEI, joins Sebastian and me for this wide-ranging conversation in which we discuss:  How to get emerging product leaders to slow down and leverage LPPD to build stronger teams and better businesses  How engineers can use LPPD to become more effective business leaders by understanding how the larger business works   Sebastian’s advice to product leaders on how to understand both the physical and digital side of the business (as well as how LPPD supports this effort)  How to build “process thinkers”, not just product development leaders  Where Sebastian sees hop

Jim Lancaster, Owner and CEO of Lantech, talks with Josh Howell, LEI President, and Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer Strategy, about his lean journey and the decades-long transformation at his packaging-solutions company. Lantech, a lean pioneer, was highlighted in Jim Womack’s and Daniel Jones’ 1996 book Lean Thinking, and has steadily improved, growing the business 75% since 2020 despite economic and market factors that have derailed other companies.   Jim, author of The Work of Management, started at Lantech in high school when his father, Pat, was CEO. After college he worked in the financial industry, and then came back to Louisville to help run the family business. “I was very involved [as a participant] in the very first part of the lean transformation that we made back with Shingjutsu and consulting firm TBM way back in the early 90s... I grew up in the sales side of our business for the first four or five years before taking over and running the company in 1995, which is when I really started leading t

In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we continue our series on AI in product development with an interview with Mari Zumbro, Co-Founder and COO of the tech startup Filament. An active participant in the open-source community, Filament describes itself as a new communication platform with the goal of accelerating global innovation with leaders who are thinking deeply about “how different communities and organizations can mutually benefit and look for arrangements that benefit the public good.”  In this conversation, we discuss:   How to build high-performing product development teams that effectively leverage AI to achieve exceptional results.  What it takes to create work cultures where teams feel “safe to create.”  Why “product development is a team sport.”   The larger benefits and hidden problems of AI, including its impact on the environment.  Leadership behaviors and practices that keep teams in a generative space, putting people before AI and keeping them at the center of work design. 

Josh Howell and Mark Reich, LEI President and Chief Engineer Strategy, respectively, speak with Scott Heydon, former VP of Global Strategy at Starbucks, McKinsey & Co. consultant, and a Senior Lean Coach with LEI since 2014. They discuss Scott’s efforts to transform Starbucks with lean thinking, learning lean methods and new ways of problem-solving along the way, and how he’s taken that knowledge to other organizations.     Scott says at Starbucks he evolved his own problem-solving from that of a top-down, MBA-style focused on financials and strategic analysis to include a recognition of problems from the bottom up and a need to develop the capability of others to incrementally improve and problem-solve at the local level to “get better every day.” His work at Starbucks included a four-store lean experiment, which involved then Starbucks colleague Josh and was eventually expanded across the coffeehouse chain. The effort was revised midcourse, says Scott, as his programmatic approach shifted to a better un

In this episode of The Design Brief, we speak with Fabrice Bernhard. Fabrice is cofounder and chief technology officer of Theodo, a leading tech consultancy in Europe, and coauthor of The Lean Tech Manifesto. Fabrice discusses what it takes to create great digital products, how high-performing teams can use AI with care, and how LPPD (lean product and process development) thinking works with generative AI to strengthen businesses and teams.  The conversation explores:   What intentional use of AI in product development looks like (while keeping human beings at the center)  Where Fabrice and his team have focused their energies helping companies make the digital transformation  How AI helps teams practice the LPPD principle of “building in learning and knowledge reuse” to create better products  How business leaders can use AI to “translate” legacy systems into the modern systems we need to do value-creating work now  Common pitfalls leaders run into when experimenting with AI in product development 

Josh Howell, LEI President, and Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer Strategy, join Olivier Larue, President of Ydatum, and discuss the Toyota Production System (TPS), the three elements embedded within TPS that make it more than just a production system, and the ability of TPS to foster problem-solving and creativity. Olivier worked with Mark at the Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC) in the late 1990s and has led Ydatum since 2000, assisting companies in implementing its version of TPS. Olivier recently authored the first of three volumes of The Toyota Economic System, which will present the three elements of the “Toyota triangle” — philosophical, technical, and managerial — and their necessity in making TPS an economic system for growth.  TPS has enabled mass production to accommodate customization, which had been minimized in the pursuit of lower costs for large quantities of standardized goods, says Olivier. TPS allows companies to “build a product affordably and very much customized to the desires of the

Josh Howell and Mark Reich, LEI President and Chief Engineer Strategy, respectively, talk with Sal Sanchez, a Toyota veteran and TPS coach with LEI. Sal’s Toyota career began at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), the GM/Toyota joint venture and Toyota’s first automotive footprint in the United States, and continued with roles at Toyota North American headquarters and TSSC (Toyota Supplier Support Center, where he worked with Mark in the late-1990s) as well as Dana Corp. Across his career he’s learned from Toyota leaders and other notable lean mentors, including Gary Convis, which has, in turn, enabled him to help many organizations apply the Toyota Production System (TPS) and TPS fundamentals such as problem-solving and daily management.  Sal describes his pursuit of all things problem-solving while rising up through Toyota, including his role as a team leader supporting others with problem-solving issues that surfaced throughout the day, especially when an andon cord was pulled and solutions needed

Josh Howell, LEI President, talks about the relationship of problem-solving and daily management with Jill Miller, Manager for Global Learning and Development at MillerKnoll, a maker of office furniture, equipment, and home furnishings. Jill supports the development, use, and expansion of the MillerKnoll Performance System (MKPS), which she says is designed to meet customers’ needs by engaging and developing people to daily surface and solve problems. “At its heart, it’s really about building capability across the organization.”   Josh and Jill describe their experiences with how an effective daily management system makes it easy and straightforward for organizations to know what problems they should be solving. “One of the most powerful things about MKPS is that it helps make problems visible every day, right where the work is happening,” says Jill. “So when people ask, ‘What problem do we need to solve?’ the system actually helps answer that by revealing the problems that might otherwise go unnoticed. I thi

Josh Howell, LEI President, Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer Strategy, and Art Smalley discuss the four basic types of problem-solving. Art is a well-known expert in leadership, management, and the Toyota Way. He worked at Toyota Motor Corp. in Japan; helped to transform Donnelly Corp. in Michigan; was a consultant with McKinsey & Co.; and has authored several award-winning books, including Four Types of Problems.   The trio set out to discuss how the framework of the four types of problems maps onto the lean management system explained in Mark’s recent book about hoshin kanri, Managing on Purpose, as well as daily management in Toyota, leadership, culture, and other related topics. The systematic intersection of these topics is a complex subject beyond just the simpler notion of “tools.” Art and Mark share respective viewpoints from their time at Toyota in Japan and what made the system so unique while trying to connect the dots of four types of problems, hoshin kanri, and other areas.  Josh kicks off

In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we speak with Sandrine Olivencia, author of Build to Sell: The Lean Secret to Crafting Irresistible Products, co-founder of Taktique Academy, and partner at Lean Sensei Partners. This is the second time Sandrine has joined us on the WLEI podcast, and in this particular conversation, we discuss why lean product and process development principles are crucial for entrepreneurs in today’s rapidly shifting market demands.  The conversation explores:   How Sandrine found her way to lean and agile and how early work by lean product and process development thinkers Al Ward, Jim Morgan, Durward Sobek, and more have influenced her career trajectory;  How to get started when it comes to building a product-led organization, in part by moving from “feature frenzy” to a focus on value-driven, performance-based product development;  What startups should be thinking about if they want to make it past those very challenging first five years;   Where leaders tend to stumble with lean

Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer of Strategy, and Karen Gaudet, LEI Senior Coach, talk with Michael Duncan, President of Viwinco, about his efforts to establish a robust daily management system in the family-owned window and door company and connect it to the company’s hoshin kanri process. Michael grew up in the company and, after rising into leadership, spearheaded the company’s transformation, implementing lean principles and tools while developing people. This enabled the company to more efficiently manage its challenging business model of customized products, varying demand, short lead times, and no finished-goods inventory. Success via lean recently has been enhanced by developing an improved strategic planning process and supporting it with a daily management system that develops a regular cadence and structure to elevate problems to manage performance, including achievement of KPIs and progress made with strategic projects. Learn more about how LEI can help your organization.

In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we speak with product leader and angel investor Phil Green about product-centered entrepreneurship and what it takes to truly create value for customers. Since 2020, Phil has been the senior advisor for B2B and technology at Harvard Innovation Labs. Before the i-lab, Phil spent over 30 years working at various startups as a CEO, COO, CTO, and a product manager. The conversation explores:  Some of the most exciting products and services Phil has seen come out of Harvard’s entrepreneurial community What it takes to create a solid MVP (minimum viable product) Why Phil teaches “minimum valuable process,” not just “MVP” The different types of challenges teams face in large, distributed organizations versus smaller startups when it comes to lean thinking How to focus on lean and agile principles rather than rituals to move fast while staying responsive to customers and market demands Learn more about lean thinking and practice at lean.org

  Josh Howell, LEI president, explores the topic of daily management with Joe Seestadt, Director Lab Outreach for Bronson Healthcare and a faculty member and coach with LEI. Joe trained as an industrial engineer and worked in manufacturing, and has now spent some 18 years in healthcare. He was instrumental in developing the Cleveland Clinic’s daily management system, which has been recognized across the industry. Joe is unique in that he is both a lean guide to others as well as an owner and user of a system and concepts that he’s helping individuals grasp as they try to transform their own organizations. He describes the importance of daily management as having the ability to know every day if you are ahead or behind, having a mechanism to solve problems at a daily beat in any type of operation (healthcare, service, or manufacturing), and as a means to bring strategy/hoshin kanri to fruition. 

Josh Howell, LEI president, talks with Dr. Sarah Womack, an eight-year veteran of Toyota and author of Toyota’s Improvement Thinking from the Inside. Sarah discusses how her transformation and that of other individuals within Toyota collectively contributed to organizational improvements and high performance. Her Toyota experiences exponentially advanced her learning and today enable her to successfully impart lean values and mindsets to organizations that are very unlike Toyota. Learn more about lean thinking and practice at lean.org

In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we speak with Steve Spear, a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, senior fellow at the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, and associated faculty member at Adriane Labs of the Harvard School of Public Health. Spear is also author of The High-Velocity Edge and Wiring the Winning Organization and principal of SeeToSolve. The conversation explores:  Stellar examples of product development innovation (and the learning cultures that made these achievements possible) What Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, DevOps, and more schools of systems thinking and management all have in common What business and product leaders across hardware and software can learn from each other Key ideas and core principles you should take away from his latest book  What kind of leadership Steve believes is needed now and what good leadership looks like in practice, given all of the organizational challenges companies face today

In this episode of WLEI Podcast, we welcome Amy Smith, Founding Director of MIT’s D-Lab, an innovative university-based program in international development and a senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

In this episode of WLEI Podcast, we welcome Cynthia E. Smith, Curator of Socially Responsible Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and author of Design for the Other 90%. Cynthia speaks about design as a catalyst for change and what it means, as she says, to be in “the collective work of building capacity and agency in communities across the world.”

In this edition of The Management Brief, Mark Reich sits down with Isao Yoshino, a 40-year veteran of Toyota and a driving force behind the company’s success with hoshin kanri. Yoshino shares the impact that hoshin kanri and A3 problem-solving has had on him professionally and personally.   Key takeaways include: · Multiple roles over four decades at Toyota shaped Yoshino’s management beliefs and career. · Yoshino discusses working directly with Mikio Sugiura, who was instrumental in developing Toyota’s hoshin kanri process. · Hoshin kanri can positively impact a company as it has Toyota, notes Yoshino, but it’s not without a few challenges. · Delivering bad news first and an earnest desire to learn from failures were commonplace for Yoshino and Toyota executives and fostered the improvement mindset that still thrives in the company today.

In this episode of the WLEI podcast, we sit down with Mark Dolsen, President of TRQSS, a seat belt manufacturer that supplies Toyota and other automakers in North America. Mark shares insights into TRQSS's lean journey and the critical role of frontline supervisors in driving continuous improvement.  Key takeaways include:  TRQSS has evolved its lean practices over decades, starting with the influence of Japanese coordinators and later adopting TWI principles.  The company's "TPS for Team Leaders" program focuses on developing supervisors' capabilities in areas like flow, standardized work, and kaizen.  TRQSS's quality management approach is rooted in the principle of "mizenboushi" — proactively maintaining process conditions to ensure good parts every time. Read more about how TRQSS applies mizenboushi in this paper. Mark's leadership philosophy emphasizes coaching, teaching, and empowering employees to make decisions and contribute to the company's lean culture.