Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Japan and I’ll be with Kaizen Institute for our second Lean healthcare study tour (see a PDF about the trip).
We have an incredibly diverse group, with attendees from the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and Singapore. We’re going to learn a lot about Japan and Lean and I’m sure we’re going to learn a lot from each other.
Before my first trip in 2012, I wrote this post where a number of you commented about things I should look for and questions I should ask. I just realized I didn’t follow up on that page… so I left a few comments now.
A pharmacy employee at a Japanese hospital explains and shows the before and after of 5S
For this trip, do you have any advice for me, recommendations, or questions you’d want me to ask? Last time I learned that you have to ask the right questions the right way in order to get the right answers. And, tour hosts might not be as forthcoming to an outsider as they would be internally… but we certainly still learned a lot in that first trip.
We’re visiting a Toyota plant, another factory, and three hospitals (including a repeat visit to one I saw two years ago). I have about four days of personal time in Tokyo, so personal suggestions about places to visit, restaurants, etc. are welcome.
I’ll be tweeting and blogging about the trip as I can and will definitely write posts when I get back, as I did last time (see here and other posts).
About LeanBlog.org: Mark Graban’s passion is creating a better, safer, more cost effective healthcare system for patients and better workplaces for all.
Mark is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “Lean healthcare” methodology. He is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, as well as The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. Mark is also the
VP of Customer Success for the technology company KaiNexus.
