CASE STUDY - The Manuelita Sugar Mill in Colombia applied Daily Management to improve leadership effectiveness and operational results, and to address silo thinking and communication issues.

INTERVIEW - In this interview, Lynne Smith discusses the possibilities and difficulties of applying Lean Thinking to NGOs and looks back at the lean transformation at the Gates Foundation.

In this article taken from LEI's Design Brief, Jim Morgan talks about the often overlooked topic of building quality into new products. Learn how a customer-centric approach in development can prevent costly rework and build lasting trust.

Small businesses represent about 90% of the global economy and account for a large proportion of employment. Yet they are often overlooked when it comes to Lean Thinking. Most Lean transformations we hear and read about involve medium and (more often) large organizations - many of them employing thousands of workers and relying on supply chains that span several continents. But the experience of Lean Institute Brasil (LIB) and SEBRAE over the past three years proves that Lean Thinking can also have a very positive impact on SMEs.

When it comes to fighting climate change, we can't accomplish much until we fundamentally challenge the way we think about resource consumption. Lean is our tool to do just that.

The author highlights the critical skills, "powerskills," that leaders need to provide the right support for the transformations they lead.

We speak with Avianca's VP of Maintenance and Engineering to learn more about the airline's efforts to fulfill its promise to passengers.

Developing a Lean-culture means developing every Lean-thinker and helping them reach their full potential. This is how the Aramis Group does it.

After a positive experience in manufacturing, this Colombian company brought Lean to the rest of the organization. The goal? To become a reliable partner for its customers in national and international markets. In this case study, the company takes us through its journey.

On the occasion of International Women's Day on March 8, Planet Lean posted an article on female leadership illustrating how they motivate others to take on the challenge of sustainability through Lean practices. We translated the article for you, which is now available to read on our website.

FEATURE - Nobody understands people as well as people do, and Jidoka is the key to getting to know your customers and creating ever better products and services.

By taking product branch time as a perspective, we can better align technical decisions with market demands, leading to better design, manufacturing and material choices.

The editors of Planet Lean reflect on the magazine's origins and its role and contribution to the Lean community.

In this article, you will understand how potential mistakes can become an endless source of personal and managerial growth.

How does a company's improvement department become a barrier to transformation?

FEATURE - If you think you are born a leader, you are wrong. Leadership can be learned, and in this article the author provides a four-step guide to developing it.

CASE STUDY - The story of Norwegian furniture manufacturer Haugstad Møbel who was able to transform its culture and harness the potential for sustainable growth thanks to Lean Thinking.

WEB SERIES - In the latest installment of our series It's a Lean World, we travel to the very tip of South America to visit the world's southernmost distribution center and learn more about lean work.

FEATURE - On Oct. 31, the Lean movement lost one of its pioneers. In this article, Dan Jones reflects on the legacy of Freddy Ballé.

CASE STUDY - Thanks to Lean Thinking, this Spanish construction company was able to deliver a challenging project within a year, well ahead of schedule. Here's how they did it.

WEB SERIES - In this episode, we go to Chilean Patagonia to visit a fish feed manufacturer that has applied Lean Thinking to improve yields and eliminate inventory shortages and stock-outs.

FEATURE - The author explores methods to expand your "sweet spots" for flow, improve your focus and achieve a state of effortless productivity.

FEATURE - This insightful piece explores the true meaning of problem solving, looking at the common mistakes leaders make when implementing some of the most important practices.

FEATURE - We are used to approach strategic thinking as if our organization is in a position of stability and dominance. What if we start thinking of it as creating better deals with all parties involved?

When it needed to develop a new production process for a new product, this Dutch company used Lean tools and practices. And the results were impressive.

FEATURE - Waste in the agricultural sector poses a major threat not only to the environment, economy and farmers, but also to food security around the world.

INTERVIEW - We are used to seeing A3s primarily as a problem-solving tool. In this Q&A, read about the experience of a San Francisco hospital using A3s for personal development.

INTERVIEW - The Food&Beverage department of the Gran Tacande Hotel in Tenerife uses a powerful visual management tool to effectively visualize and track the variables that affect workflow.

To bring consistency to customer service in their network of workshops, this Brazilian company turned to Lean Thinking. Gradually, they found in it a different approach to leadership.

Kaizen allows people to participate directly in the work of improvement. But without the clear responsibility and follow-up of a manager, they are left alone with the consequences of the changes introduced.

The author shares a story of a training session at gemba that contains some important lessons about the Training Within Industry method.

The lean journey of the Engineering and Maintenance Department of Colombian airline Avianca proves the importance of leadership taking the lead on change.

Why is lean change so difficult to achieve in times of abundance? And why does it seem more feasible when there is chaos? The author attempts to answer these questions.

In the second installment of our docuseries on Lean in Chile, we learn how SKC, with a clear goal and strong leadership commitment, is transforming its processes and mindset and building a competitive advantage.

Drawing on 33 years of experience in product development at Caterpillar, Steve Shoemaker reflects on lean in engineering.

In this Q&A, the Chief of Transformation at oil and gas company TechnipFMC talks about their experience implementing Lean Product and Process Development.

After a study tour in Japan, the authors wonder if there is anything to learn from Toyota's network of suppliers in the age of AI and digital. Hint: it's a rhetorical question.

This Canary Islands hotel is applying lean in the kitchen department, hoping to streamline the process and provide guests with better service.

Freeing up beds is an age-old problem for hospitals. The medical department of this Catalan hospital group has found a creative way to solve it.

CASE STUDY - By using Daily Management (DM), Supergasbras was able to change its trajectory and add more value to the customer in a sector critical to society.

Cleveland Clinic has been at Lean for a few years now. In this interview, their Chief Improvement Officer and Chief Nursing Officer talk about continuous improvement, benchmarks and sustainable outcomes.

This free e-book helps beginning and mid-stage Lean Thinkers gain a better understanding of Lean Thinking and its application in practice.

Season 2 of the docuseries on Lean worldwide is a fact! In the first episode of this season, we visit a company in Chile that shows us how sustainability can be the cornerstone of an improvement project and not just an afterthought.

The emergency department of this Catalan hospital finds great value in the application of Lean Thinking, which has already led to a drastic change in processes and better care for patients.

The hardest part of any learning journey is learning to learn and figuring out what we need to learn - as opposed to what we want to learn. The author questions whether we are learning the right lessons from the Toyota Production System and points out a few things we are understudying.

In the fourth and final episode of season 1 of our docuseries, we visit Leroy Merlin, a home furnishings and gardening retailer, and learn about their efforts to make their supply chain more flexible.

Episode 3 of our docuseries on Lean in Brazil takes us to the country's second largest bank. Discover how Bradesco strives to improve its processes to provide more value to its customers using Lean Thinking.

In the second installment of our docuseries on Lean in Brazil, we learn how the pioneering efforts of a cancer clinic inspired the city of São José dos Campos to transform itself into a lean healthcare cluster.

The Hospital de Bellvitge in Barcelona relies heavily on hoshin and Kata to create a work environment based on cooperation and joint problem solving.

In 2020, GE Appliances had to set up a brand new assembly process for a new dishwasher. The manager in charge of the program explains how Lean Product & Process Development helped them get it right.

Today we launch a new documentary series on Lean around the world, with the first episode focusing on Lean in Brazil. In the first episode, we visit the Lean clinic on a mission to reduce the burden of cancer in our lives.

For the past 6 years, the municipality of Breda has been successfully working with Lean. In the book The Lean government Erik Ottens writes about Breda's experiences with Lean. For inspiration, read the first chapter of this book for free.

This year, Planet Lean seeks to understand what the future of work looks like in a world with AI. To kick us off and get us thinking, we are publishing an article resulting from a one-hour conversation between a human and a machine.

Earlier this month, we attended a Lean Day at Dreamplace Hotels and Resorts in the Canary Islands. We sat down with two Lean leaders to discuss their companies' transformations.

Yesterday, our new colleague Patrick Saleh started at LMI. He had already been working with Lean for several years as a team leader at Koninklijke Vezet B.V.

Dominic Maas, a manager at a logistics service provider, signed up for Nyenrode Business University's Lean Leadership Program because he and his client wanted to understand waste in the process. But it was ultimately the strategy deployment method that impressed him most. "I am now more successful in translating strategic objectives to the shop floor."

In this interesting piece, Michael Ballé explains how Lean provides a framework for everyone and everywhere to work on their intuition muscle and develop insights.

John Shook on Lean transformations, Lean in crisis and lifelong learning.

We are often asked what the difference is between Lean, Agile and Scrum. We'd like to explain to you below how these disciplines relate to each other.

Prior to his presentation at the Lean Global Connection, Huibert-Jan den Hartog shares his thoughts on the current energy crisis and discusses how Lean is helping E.ON weather it.

Lean is a way to improve processes. When we talk about Lean, we often talk about the various Lean principles, Lean methods and Lean techniques with which you can improve processes and thus your work.

The book Raise the bar - From zero to 1 billion shares the lessons learned in growing the Aramis Group up to its IPO on Euronext.

Outdoor Life Group is transforming its order picking process using Lean to increase the number of orders it can process daily.

Every Lean generation has faced challenges, and it is essential that we understand the context around us if we are to continue to grow our community.

To ease the transition to a new organization of work in their department, a group of nurses at Erasmus Medical Center used the Lean technique Training Within Industry (TWI).

Inge Otten, former Business Navigator now responsible for process improvement within IKEA, looks back on what she learned in one of the company's stores and explains how she hopes to bring Lean to the entire group.

Our editor recently spoke with Kjeld Aij, the director of the largest hospital in the Netherlands, and asked him about the Lean transformation he is leading there.

How Lean Thinking contributes to a more efficient and effective way of dealing with problems.

How in a Lean organization, relationships are structured around learning opportunities rather than execution. This ultimately allows a company to grow.

Is there such a thing as a "learning organization? Can an organization learn at all? And if so, how do you build a learning organization? Or is an organization an abstract concept and only people can learn?

What is the contribution of Lean Thinking to the fight against climate change? Michael Ballé discusses the Toyota approach to sustainability and what it takes to get "green" to the top of the corporate agenda.

This hotel in Spain was able to apply Lean Thinking in its restaurant to successfully adapt to the new Covid-19 regulations in force in the country, and became more efficient in the process.

What does it take to support a Lean transformation from within? A reflection on the role of the Lean team in the turnaround of the Brazilian insurance company SulAmérica.

The lean transformation of oil and gas supplier Beerenberg.

Jonny Mooi is Head of Distribution at UMCG, directs the Logistics Center Eemspoort that handles logistics for UMCG, Martini Hospital Groningen and Ommelander Hospital Groningen. Jonny has years of experience working Lean and is fully committed to making their organization better with Lean .

The Corona pandemic is pushing healthcare systems around the world to their limits, and despite the heroic efforts of healthcare professionals, hard work is often not enough.

A Dutch transmission system operator is using Lean Planning - built around the Last Planner system - to better manage its complex infrastructure projects.

5S is one of the most important Lean tools. What exactly is 5S and how is it deployed in organizations? And what does it actually deliver!

A school board discovers the potential of Lean thinking and improves its processes to address teacher overload.

Is "lean fire-fighting" an oxymoron? It is not if you are the Grand Rapids Fire Department, which has not only transformed itself, but has taken the lead in a Lean transformation of the entire city.

Last year, the Lean Global Network partnered with the Singapore Institute of Technology to bring Lean opportunities to local SMEs. Along the way, we discovered an alternative approach to academic education.

Somehow it is surprising that business schools teach very little about management, and if they do, all the learning is classroom-based. Instead, they should go to gemba.

This month, we talk with an urban strategist to see if and how Lean can help transform our cities.

When we think of innovation, we rarely think of government, and yet the public sector is in dire need of modernization and improvement. Pierre Pezziardi is on a mission to bring innovation to the French government.

The theory of hoshin kanri is clear, but how do you apply it in a government organization structured in departments where making A3s is not an everyday practice? Rijkswaterstaat shares his experience.

The historic city of Amersfoort in the Netherlands has implemented Lean thinking and doing in local government to provide better and faster services to its citizens.

Addressing failure costs and introducing a new quotation process are just two of the ways construction company Dura Vermeer is successfully implementing a Lean transformation.