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Visiting the Toyota Museum in Nagoya
While I’m in Japan this week (read about the trip), I’m going to keep my blogging light – my aim is to share one picture or thought each day. I’ll blog more about the trip after Thanksgiving and I’m...
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Tweets from Japan, Day 1
I know many of you aren’t into the whole Twitter thing, but I’m using my account (@MarkGraban) to share some photos and small batches of ideas that I come across. I’ll also share them here (but keep in...
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Andon Cords at the Toyota Takaota Plant – It Doesn’t Come Naturally?
Yesterday, I was able to visit Toyota City as part of the Kaizen Institute tour I am a part of. Now, we weren’t able to take pictures in the Takaota factory that we visited (they build Corollas and a...
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“Unity in the Essential, Liberty in the Non-Essential…”
Our Kaizen Institute guide, Brad Schmidt (pictured at left) talked to us on Monday about standardized work. He said, of the practice at Toyota, that it’s “voluntary standardization.” This is...
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A Japanese Hospital CEO on Kaizen, Innovation & Breakthrough
Yesterday, our Lean Healthcare tour of Japan (with Kaizen Institute) took us to our second hospital, this time in Tokyo. The CEO, Shuhei Iida, MD, pictured at left, spent a lot of time with us, talking...
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The “Gold Prize” Kaizen QC Project Saved How Much?
Yesterday, our tour group had a chance to visit an outstanding factory. They manufacture gas meters and they do everything from casting aluminum, creating printed circuit boards, stamping, painting,...
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A Small Batch of Bread, Other Random Japan Pictures
I’m on my way home from Japan as this post gets published. I will probably take the week off from blogging for the Thanksgiving holiday and I’ll reflect on the amazing trip and the learning… resuming...
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Japan Tour Reflections: Taking Home Lean Artifacts or Lean Thinking?
Reflecting more on my recent Japan tour (see previous posts) one word came up in my notes: artifacts. One dictionary definition of that term is straightforward: “any object made by human beings,...
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Japan Trip: Going to Gemba and Seeing 5S at a Japanese Hospital
Original Post From 2012: I’ve been going back through my notes and pictures from my first trip to Japan in November… my goal is blog about something or share a picture on a weekly basis. Read more...
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Traveling to Japan Tomorrow – What Questions Should I Ask?
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...
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Follow our Japan Lean Healthcare Tour via Twitter
Konichiwa from Nagoya! Starting today, we have a group of 18 people here in Japan, including 13 doctors, some nurses, and healthcare senior leaders from around the world. I’ll eventually be blogging...
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Our Toyota Tour Guide’s Kaizen
We just finished our second day of our Kaizen Institute Japan Lean Tour and it’s been great so far. Follow us via the hashtag #KaizenTour on Twitter for more real-time updates. Monday afternoon, we...
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“Quality Circles” Are Alive & Well in Japanese Organizations; We Might Call...
One question I was asked to ask during my Japan trip was to see if “Quality Circles” are still active in Japanese companies. I think the term was brought to the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, but...
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The Kaizen Approach to Getting Others Comfortable with Sushi
I’ll be blogging a lot more about my recent trip to Japan with Kaizen Institute, including the site visits and our lessons learned. I had a few days of tourist / vacation time in Tokyo before and after...
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Words vs. Simple Visuals; A Secret About Japanese Hospitals
This tweet and photo made me chuckle the other day… If it’s “your right” or “your left” as you’re going up or down the stairs, collisions are going to happen if everybody followed these instructions:...
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Good Ideas, Lean Ideas, Keep Crossing the Pacific
The ideas, principles, and methods that we’d recognize as “Lean” aren’t exclusively of Japanese origin. Many of us, myself included, draw inspiration from Toyota, reading books about them and visiting...
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Looking back at the Toyota Tsutsumi plant tour, part 1
I’ve been overdue in writing more posts about our Japan tour that took place two months ago now. See previous posts in this series. I’m going to try to do one post a week on this topic. It’s always...
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Looking back at the Toyota Tsutsumi plant tour, part 2
Last week, I wrote a post (part 1) looking back at our visit to the Toyota Tsutsumi factory that was part of our Japan tour that took place two months ago now. See previous posts in this series. I’m...
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Upcoming Lean Healthcare Events – Webinars, Workshop, Conference, and Trip
Hi – I’d let to let you know about or remind you about a few upcoming events that I’ll be a part of. I hope you can join me for one or more of them. One of them is a free and requires no travel (a...
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Podcast #223 – Christian Wolcott, Lean Trips to Japan with Kaizen Institute
My guest for podcast episode #223 is Christian Wolcott, a senior advisor and director of Kaizen Institute North America and their director for Japan tours. Christian was an integral part of the team...
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