Lean @ LAC: Continuous Improvement   Tags: continuous_improvement, leadership, lean, lewiston  

This guide is designed to provide quick access to resources identified by USM Lewiston-Auburn College. Please report errors and omissions to me, the coordinator of LAC's continuous improvement initiative. 

NOTE: this guide will be updated regularly, so check back frequently!

I've discovered Eliyahu Goldratt's The Goal: a process of ongoing improvement. It's a novel about the manufacturing process that teaches you how to examine your goals, assumptions, measurements, and bottlenecks through the story of a manager who is given three months to turn his plant around or face closure.  I've already ordered the sequels, It's not luck and Critical chain, to have on hand when I finish The Goal...the book is THAT good!

Click here for a page of definitions used in lean work from the Univ of Oklahoma.  The Univ of Kentucky has a list of Toyota-related definitions that includes some not in Oklahoma's. 

Be sure to check out the November 2010 Becoming Lean Pocket Guide from University of St. Andrews (Scotland). It's a great PDF that you should read!

Now...what does Lean mean for us???

The Student Success Center under Kim Jenkins has successfully implemented changes that greatly reduced the amount of time it was taking to process graduating students' paperwork.  Kim also recommended the Kata site under Internet Resources in this guide.

Dan Philbrick made a proposal to streamline course evaluations.

Dean Joyce Gibson is looking at lean strategies for meetings, including when and how to effectively use minutes.

On Friday, March 4 (2011), the LAC department heads toured the New Balance factory to see an example of the Toyota continuous improvement process in action.  You find this article on their human side of lean interesting.