The Lean Solutions Podcast

Today on the podcast, I’m sharing a presentation I did for Inforum Affinity Group.  I go over the principles and concepts of Lean and how they can be used today as well as in the future as technology continues to evolve. In this episode I also go over a brief history of Lean manufacturing and how it relates to today. What You’ll Learn This Episode: History of Lean manufacturing How can companies that are trapped in Lean appearance succeed Is Lean outdated and will it be relevant in the future How flexibility is important How can agile be utilized alongside Lean About the Guest: Patrick Adams is the author of the best selling book “Avoiding the Continuous Appearance Trap.” He is an international speaker, coach, and consultant. Patrick has been delivering bottom-line results through specialized process improvement solutions for over 20 years. He's worked with all types of businesses from private, non-profits, government, and manufacturing ranging from small business to billion dollar corporations. Patrick is a proven leader and highly experienced consultant with specific niche focus on organizational strategy and leadership development which brings a unique human approach to sound team-building practices; creating consensus and enabling empowerment. He motivates, inspires, and drives the right results at all points in business processes. Important Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickadamsii/

Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Andy Olrich, a Continuous Improvement and Innovation Leader for the Hunter Water Corporation in Newcastle, Australia. Andy has over 25 years experience in engineering trades, health services, manufacturing, mining, logistics, processes and support. In this episode, Andy and I talk about the importance of leaders committing to standards when training a team and why it’s so important for leaders to not only set clear expectations but to also support and drive change. What You’ll Learn This Episode: Getting your team excited and engaged with Lean The importance of executive leadership supporting the team Andy’s biggest lightbulb moment in his career The importance of committing to standards when it comes to training a team Incorporating Lean practices into your daily life Andy’s advice to anyone passionate about Lean and wanting to become a respected leader About the Guest: Andy Olrich is the Continuous Improvement and Innovation Lead for the Hunter Water Corporation in Newcastle Australia. Andy has over 25 years’ experience in engineering trades, health services, manufacturing, mining, logistics processes and support. Andy holds formal qualifications in Engineering and trades plus LEAN Six Sigma & Agile methodologies. Andy is passionate about developing himself further as a respected Lean leader and enjoys seeing the benefits of teams embracing Continuous Improvement and working together to achieve common and personal goals. Important Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-olrich/ https://www.facebook.com/andy.olrich?sk=wall&notif_id=1640549102606889&notif_t=wall&ref=notif

Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Jake Harrell. Jake is a supply chain enthusiast and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. He is also the host of A Quality Podcast and the author of the book Chasing Excellence. In this episode, Jake talks about the importance of being funny and bringing humor into Lean to appeal to a wide array of people. What You’ll Learn This Episode: Jake’s background and how his podcast got started Sparking fun and humor in Lean Using memes for fun when talking about Lean Dealing with negative lash back on social media Why being funny and bringing humor into Lean is important Being young in Lean and keeping up with changes About the Guest: Jake Harrell is a supply chain enthusiast and lean six sigma black belt committed to chasing excellence. He is the host of "A Quality podcast" and a collaborator in "Zoom Operational Excellence", a company founded by John Thacker to Collaborate with the Lean consulting community. By day, I implement new systems in distribution centers around the globe, and by night, I am the funniest lean guy. My purpose is to bring humor/lightheartedness to make the lean space more approachable and attractive. Important Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakeharrellchasingexcellence/ https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Excellence-Jake-Harrell/dp/0578727773 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4iOzsobf99YG1wCxn9r60w/featured

Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Karyn Ross, an internationally acclaimed consultant, coach, lean practitioner and author. Karyn is also the founder of the Love and Kindness Project which is a movement spreading kindness from person to person around the world. In this episode, Karyn talks about the movement and why it’s so important to focus on kindness, even in a Lean setting and how you can implement kind leadership everyday. What You’ll Learn This Episode: Why kindness in Lean matters Kind leadership How the Love and Kindness Project started #storiesofkindness - what it is and how it got started Why small acts of kindness are important Who the Love and Kindness Project is for and who can participate How you can practice being kind even if it doesn't come naturally to you About the Guest: Karen is an internationally acclaimed consultant, coach and lean practitioner, and focuses on teaching organizations of all sizes and sectors how to use creativity combined with Toyota Way principles, practices and tools. This powerful combination enables organizations to create better, more effective and efficient ways to work. While many other Lean consultants focus on implementing tools, Karyn teaches teams how to use Practical Creativity™ to continuously strive towards service excellence. Karyn is on a mission to 'Help People Improve the World'. Important Links: https://loveandkindnessproject.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-love-and-kindness-project-foundation/ https://www.amazon.com/Kind-Leader-Practical-Eliminating-Creating/dp/0367693437

Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Alessandro Lasi, whose career includes more than 10 years in continuous improvement leadership positions. Alessandro also earned a master's in industrial engineering and has a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification and is also a Kaizen facilitator. In this episode, Alessandro and I talk about the mindset and culture of Lean and Continuous Improvement including different tactics and techniques to support the continuous improvement culture. What You’ll Learn This Episode: Alessandro’s background in Lean The importance of failure and learning from failure Psychological safety within Lean culture Why you need to focus on process and purpose in Lean to get results What’s needed to get continuous improvement to the next level Getting to the sweet spot in Lean Why it’s difficult for organizations to nurture CI culture Why psychological safety is so important About the Guest: Alessandro’s career includes more than ten years in continuous improvement leadership positions in FMCG, Mechanical and Machinery, Services and Retail industries at top-tier global corporations –including, but not limited to, Hertz Corporation, SCA/Essity, and Leonardo. Known for his daring vision and tireless energy, Alessandro has been helping improve processes and drive company growth for the past five years at his current employer, a multinational company active in the Mechanical and Machinery business. He joined the company in 2016, with a mission to create and apply a new pan-European Continuous Improvement approach. After such a successful endeavor, Alessandro advanced through positions of increased authority and decision-making to his current position as a Global Director Continuous Improvement. His unique ability to establish rapport with a variety of professionals, engage people across functions and offer innovative solutions for short-term and long-term process setbacks, has allowed the Company, to not only reduce its costs, but to significantly improve processes in the Manufacturing and Supply chain, and Global Aftermarket and Service divisions in a very short time. Alessandro developed and implemented a unique Global Business System (XPS) for Service and Aftermarket currently used in 30+ countries, and he successfully managed 40+ strategic business transformation improvement projects with multimillion budgets on four continents in only three years, including various restructuring and growth initiatives. For his excellent results, he was declared the 2020 Global Continuous Improvement Gold Award Winner, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion for Europe at his current employer in 2021. He is currently leading Continuous Improvement for Global Aftermarket and Service Business Unit at his current employer, driving the strategic transformation to double global revenue in 2025. Alessandro earned a Master’s in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pisa, and he holds a Lean Sigma Black Belt Certification since 2015, and a Kaizen Facilitator Certification since 2017. He is married and lives with his wife and two children in Switzerland Important Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandrolasi/?originalSubdomain=ch

Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Nigel Thurlow,  a leading expert on Lean and Agile approaches. Nigel advises companies on successful transformation strategies and how to achieve effective and lasting change. As the chief agile at Toyota connected, he established the Toyota agile Academy and is also the co-author of The Flow System. In this episode, Nigel and I talk about Agile, how it relates to Lean and the flow from scientific thinking to Agile into the flow system. What You’ll Learn This Episode: Nigel’s background in Lean and Agile The challenges with bringing Agile into Toyota The differences between Japan and the western world with executive leadership The scientific method and why it’s so important The challenges when only dealing with deductive reasoning PDCA and Scrum Agile, what it is and how it differs and relates to Lean How Agile and Lean flow into the flow system About the Guest: Nigel Thurlow is the former Chief of Agile at Toyota, creator of the World Agility Forum award-winning ‘Scrum the Toyota Way’ approach, and the co-creator of The Flow System™. He is also a Forbes top 10 noted author for his work as co-author of the book on The Flow System and is a well-known Keynote Speaker. He also co-authors The Flow Guide. Nigel is an internationally recognized expert in the Toyota Production System and The Toyota Way as well as Lean Thinking, Agile, Scrum, and Complexity concepts. In addition to his work at Toyota in recent years he has also taught and coached at Vodafone, Banco Popular, GE, Bose, 3M, Microsoft, University of North Texas, and to the faculty at MIT. Nigel also presents regularly for The Lean Institute at their events and is considered a leading expert in bridging the Lean and Agile worlds following his pioneering work at Toyota. As a Professional Scrum Trainer, the first one ever in Toyota, and the first to have been certified by both the creators of Scrum, he has trained over 8000 people worldwide as of 2021. Nigel is extensively published online and has co-authored several peer reviewed white papers and journal publications on team science. He acts as an advisor on several boards at the University of North Texas as well as contributing to Chief Executive Magazine. Nigel currently serves as the CEO of The Flow Consortium, and as an interim executive with several high-profile brands advising executive leadership teams on lean and agile strategies in complex business and organizational design environments. Important Links: https://flowguides.org/ https://www.getflowtrained.com/ https://www.amazon.com/Flow-System-Evolution-Thinking-Complexity/dp/1680400584 https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelthurlow/ The Flow System read online for free via UNT - https://library.unt.edu/aquiline-books/flow-058-8/ The Slack community - https://join.slack.com/t/the-flow-system/shared_invite/zt-o6zfwlwx-HkoqExXlmEWSwDaAFXAejA

Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Gareth Shaw. Gareth is the President, UK & Europe of Doceree, the first global network of physician-only platforms for programmatic messaging. In this episode, Gareth and I talk about leading high performing work teams and how you can maintain your high performing teams digitally during the pandemic. Gareth also shares information about pharma marketing and technology in the pharma industry. What You’ll Learn This Episode: The definition of a high performing work team Challenges for teams who want to be high performing The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and how you can avoid them The characteristics of leaders in charge of high performing teams The background of Doceree How the pandemic has changed the pharma marketing space Maintaining and building a high performing team digitally Programmatic marketing How programmatic solutions are improving the healthcare of the pharma industry About the Guest: Gareth Shaw is the President, UK & Europe of Doceree, the first global network of physician-only platforms for programmatic messaging. Prior to joining Doceree, Gareth was the General Manager, Global Programmatic, of PulsePoint where he led the programmatic and operations divisions. Further, he was the Senior Direct Response Sales Specialist at Yahoo! Throughout his career, Gareth has gained vast experience in the sales categories across the digital media and advertising technology sectors. He has a well-regarded background for building high-performance teams and implementing strategic plans to facilitate the growth of his organizations. Important Links: https://doceree.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/gareth-shaw-9214403/?originalSubdomain=uk

Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Anna Tagliapietra, an Italian Lean Office trainer and consultant. Anna mixes methods and tools from design thinking and design sprint to the traditional Lean tools using micro structures to help people interact and find ideas during their improvement projects In this episode, Anna talks about design thinking in Lean and how organizations can use micro structures. What You’ll Learn This Episode: Anna’s background in Lean What is a micro structure How you can use a micro structure at a Kaizen event The benefit of silent voting during an event How microstructure or liberating structures can help in Lean projects or Six Sigma projects Where you can use micro structures and liberating structures Ecocycle planning Purpose to practice and how to use it Lightning decision jam Time boxing and why it’s important About the Guest: Anna Tagliapietra is an Italian Lean Office trainer and consultant. She comes from the marketing and communication sector and was a partner in an advertising company before committing 100% in her Lean career. Anna worked for Ferrari, Scavolini and Clementoni and is now training a group of Lean Practitioners for Gucci RTW. In order to make good use of her former education, Anna mixes methods and tools from Design Thinking and Design Sprint to the traditional Lean tools, using microstructures to help people interact and find ideas during their improvement projects. Important Links: https://www.liberatingstructures.com/ https://www.instagram.com/leanoffice/?hl=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/annatagliapietra/ https://www.youtube.com/c/AJSmart https://www.youtube.com/c/AnnaTagliapietra

Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Dirk Fischer, an automotive General Manager, Lean Operations Engineering supply chain and Quality Manager expert with more than 25 years of experience. In this episode, Dirk and I go over system waste, what’s causing it and how you can avoid it. We also go over holistic business excellence and how it relates to system waste. What You’ll Learn This Episode: Dirk’s background in Lean and how he got started The definition of System Waste How to identify and eliminate System Waste Holistic Business Excellence How Holistic Business Excellence can help with System Waste How you can help drive the Holistic Business approach Aspects of Lean that are potentially untapped About the Guest: I was born June, 20th 1970 in the Stuttgart area, Southern Germany and finished my mechanical engineering study in September 1992. I am an automotive General Manager, lean operations, engineering, supply chain and quality management expert with more than 25 years of experience, consistently proving the ability to holistically turn around underperforming plants and groups of plants. The various turnarounds were mainly achieved through inspiring leadership for change and creating a LEAN KPI driven continuous improvement culture. I continuously implement effective action plans, which are designed to rapidly improve Customer satisfaction, Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety, Morale AND Working Capital and therefore delivering sustainable bottom line results. The pattern of success was usually to start with intensive observations on the shop floor (Go to Gemba) to really understand the problems, detailed discussions and reflections with the team, coaching the plant management team in order to establish and implement the most important actions, define high impact KPIs, provide tools to monitor progress and review frequently for effectiveness of implemented actions. This approach enabled me to frequently develop high performance teams. My leadership style and my acting and thinking is highly influenced by Deming/Ackoff/Toyota Way/ Theory of Constraints/Stephen Covey and others. In the past 10 years I held various COO/CRO roles with a responsibility ranging from a single plant with 50 million € of sales up to international multi site responsibility with 20 plants and 3,6 billion € of sales. Having worked for more than 10 years for international Anglo-American companies with strong financial focus, I am used to work in environments with strong financial controls and reporting and intensive budgeting processes. Important Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dirk-fischer-06850011?trk=author_mini-profile_title&originalSubdomain=de https://www.gaoexperts.com/

Patrick Adams is the author of the best selling book “Avoiding the Continuous Appearance Trap.” He is an international speaker, coach, and consultant. Patrick has been delivering bottom-line results through specialized process improvement solutions for over 20 years. He's worked with all types of businesses from private, non-profits, government, and manufacturing ranging from small business to billion dollar corporations. Patrick is a proven leader and highly experienced consultant with specific niche focus on organizational strategy and leadership development which brings a unique human approach to sound team-building practices; creating consensus and enabling empowerment. He motivates, inspires, and drives the right results at all points in business processes. Important Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickadamsii/ https://www.findleansolutions.com/book/