Lean Enterprise Institute

Production systems are economic systems. That framing is older than Toyota, but most organizations have forgotten it.

Mass production was a specific economic logic: maximize machine utilization, produce in large batches, absorb inefficiency through scale. It made goods affordable and available. It also created a structural conflict between profit and cash flow, elevated machines above people, and built overproduction into the system by design.

TPS did not improve that logic. It replaced it.

Olivier Larue — former practitioner at TSSC and NUMMI — argues that this is the most consequential misunderstanding in lean: treating TPS as a management overlay rather than a different economic architecture. Organizations that make this mistake invest in leadership development while their production system continues generating the problems those leaders are supposed to solve.

The result is a cycle. Improvements stall. Mass production logic returns. The language changes but the work does not.

His article makes the case for what a genuine TPS transformation requires.

Read more at https://hubs.li/Q04lxz-X0

Mark Reich traveled to China last week to speak at the China Lean Summit on Hoshin Kanri.

At the event, organizers surprised him with a copy of his book, Managing on Purpose, translated into Chinese.

Two decades of lean thinking, now in the hands of practitioners in a new language and a new context. That moment is a good reminder of why this work matters: the principles translate because the challenges do too.

Whether you're working on strategy in Shanghai or Chicago, the gap between intent and ex*****on looks remarkably similar.

Managing on Purpose is available in English, grab your copy at https://hubs.li/Q04lpZgV0

There are two places a transformation can begin.

The first is the place most start: value is already defined, and the work is to deliver it more efficiently. Map the process, find the waste, improve. This is honest, useful work. It is also bounded — because the ceiling on impact was set before the improvement team arrived.

The second starts earlier. Before asking how to deliver value, it asks what value should be. The study period is protected, not compressed.

Stakeholders commit to a shared vision before ex*****on begins, through a document that functions as a contract. Problems are found at pilot scale, not after full deployment.

The difference between the two approaches is not effort. It is sequence.

Eric Ethington's new article explains how LPPD thinking — built for product development — applies to any enterprise function: HR, Finance, Legal, Supply Chain. The framework is the same. The results are not.

Read more https://hubs.li/Q04l5SDg0

What Is the Real Work of Management?

It's not budgets, compliance, or performance reviews. It's creating purpose, designing better processes, and developing people.

Most managers know this. Yet they spend their time firefighting, solving problems themselves, and managing by reaction. The gap between knowing and doing is where organizations lose capability.

Building a management system that actually does this work requires discipline. It requires daily routines where problems surface and get addressed. It requires coaching people through problems instead of solving for them. It requires connecting what teams do every day to what the organization is trying to achieve.

This is what separates organizations that improve sustainably from those that don't.

The Lean Management Program teaches leaders how to build this system. Daily Management, Hoshin Kanri, and A3 thinking aren't training topics. They're the practices that make the real work of management possible.

Discover how to strengthen your management system: https://hubs.li/Q04l4YD30

Strategy Ex*****on Starts with a System.

Your organization understands where it needs to go. The challenge is translating that strategy into daily decisions and sustained results.

That's where the gap lives. Between knowing what lean leadership looks like and actually building it into how your organization operates.

Executives like you are enrolling in the Lean Management Program this Fall because they're tired of improvement initiatives that fade, strategies that don't cascade, and organizational capability that doesn't scale. They're building a different kind of system.

Hoshin Kanri connects strategy to daily ex*****on. A3 thinking becomes your problem-solving standard across all levels. Daily Management creates the stability that makes change stick. Together, they form an integrated management system that actually works.

You'll work with experienced lean coaches. You'll apply this to real organizational challenges. And you'll develop the leadership behaviors that make sustainable improvement possible.

19 weeks. Functional leaders, managers, and improvement specialists all committing to the same system.

See what others are building: https://hubs.li/Q04kTQDZ0

Your lean transformation may be solving the wrong problem.

Most improvement work starts by mapping value streams, identifying waste, and fixing what exists. That approach works. But it starts from a premise that limits how far you can go: value is already defined.

The LPPD community has understood for decades that 70% of an organization's costs, quality, and delivery capability are locked in at the design stage. The same logic applies to enterprise transformation. Before asking how to improve the way value is delivered, leaders need to ask what value should be.

Eric Ethington's new article applies the discipline of product and process development to the challenge of organizational transformation. The HR succession planning example makes the framework concrete and actionable.

https://hubs.li/Q04ktJJl0

Most improvement work operates in the 30%.

The other 70% — costs, quality, delivery capability — is locked in at the design stage. By the time the improvement team arrives, the most consequential decisions have already been made.

LPPD thinking asks organizations to work on the 70%. To treat transformation as a design problem. To define value before committing to how it will be delivered.

Eric Ethington makes the case in his latest article:
https://hubs.li/Q04ktvbv0

Are You Developing Problem-Solving Leaders?

Organizations that improve sustainably have one thing in common: problem-solving isn't confined to specialists or senior leaders. It's embedded throughout the management system.

Most organizations don't work this way. Problems surface. Leaders solve them. Teams move on. Nothing changes at the root. The same issues resurface. Growth plateaus because capability doesn't scale.

When problem-solving is centralized in a few people, your organization is only as good as those few people. When they leave, capability leaves with them.

Building an organization where problem-solving is distributed across all management levels changes everything. It means your frontline managers can identify root cause instead of applying quick fixes. It means functional leaders can solve cross-departmental challenges systematically. It means your executive team can address strategic problems with rigor instead of intuition. It means your entire organization gets better at learning from what actually happens.

This doesn't happen through training alone. It requires a management system that makes problem-solving a daily practice. It requires leaders who understand the methodology deeply enough to coach others through it. It requires connecting daily problem-solving to what the organization is trying to achieve. And it requires the discipline to ask good questions instead of providing answers.

The Lean Management Program builds this system. Through A3 thinking, you embed systematic problem-solving. Through Daily Management, you surface and address problems routinely. Through Hoshin Kanri, you connect problem-solving to strategy. You develop the leadership behaviors that make this work at scale.

You're not training problem-solvers. You're building organizational capability.

19 weeks.
Expert coaches.
Applied to your real challenges.

Sign up for the Lean Management Program: https://hubs.li/Q04kzfGz0

"Everyone thinks they are adding value, but most people and areas are distracting from true value creation."

Eric Ethington wrote that line about a real operator workstation buried under eight pages of quality alerts, a 25-second cycle time, and three separate functions each optimizing for their own definition of value. Quality was inspecting-in quality. HR was counting training hours. Procurement was cutting spend.
The rowing team was full. Nobody was steering.

The alternative is to treat transformation as a design problem: define value first, then build the capability to deliver it.

Read the full article from Eric Ethington:
https://hubs.li/Q04ktx8j0