When You Want to Ask Why 5X, Just Because You’re Curious…

Absolutely nothing serious here, or long. Just wanted to share this picture of a freshly returned rental car that pulled in next to mine.

Did the driver not notice an abnormality? Maybe did, but didn’t care? Who knows, other than the “operator”?

click to enlarge

I wanted to engage the person in some 5 why’s, but I thought it a bit too forward. Of course, I’m sure me taking a picture while the driver was standing nearby wasn’t too strange. Amateur lean photojournalists are relatively immune to embarrassment.

One lean lesson here? Unasked questions are hard to answer.

Harder still if you were not engaged in direct observation at the gemba when the defect occurred.

This one will haunt me forever…

Related post: Effective Visual Controls Are Self-Explaining

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Standard Work Is Like Food – Taste before Seasoning

During a recent trip to the great state of Texas, I heard some down-home wisdom, “Before you season your food, why don’t you taste it first?”

The person who uttered that question was NOT talking about food. Rather, he was challenging someone who was a little too hell-bent on changing something without truly understanding it.

Sound familiar?

Heck, even etiquette folks will tell you it’s rude to season before tasting.

“If you season your food without tasting it, you will convey to the cook that you are already assuming the food will be bland and tasteless. It is more polite to taste food first and then add seasoning if you think it’s necessary.” (How to Season Food With Table Manners)

But, the point of this post isn’t about manners…as important as they are.

It’s about standard work.

People are relatively quick to pick up on the notion of kaizen – making things easier, better, faster, and cheaper. Self-induced kaizen is fun, even freeing.

It’s better and more fun to give than to receive.

Of course, improvement without standardization is stillborn to say the least.

No doubt, we have heard the Taichii Ohno quote, “Where there is no standard, there can be no kaizen.” Standard work implies that there must be adherence. Without it, it’s more like a standard wish…as fickle as the wind. We can’t sustain improvements and we have little foundation for the next.

However, adherence, especially when “virgin” standard work (you know, that first step from the wild no standard work west days) is introduced, requires folks to often significantly change the way that they do work – new steps, sequences, cycle times, standard WIP, etc.

It can be hard learning a new way. It can be frustrating. It can feel limiting. But, it ensures that people are working to the current one best way…until it is improved again.

So, here’s the rub (pun intended).

How long does one need to go before they start adding seasoning?! How long before the standard work should be subject to improvement?

We know the likelihood of any given standard work being perfect is essentially ZERO. It’s one reason why we apply SDCA (standardize-do-check-act) – to assess not only adherence, but the sufficiency of standard work.

Improvement should follow.

But, try this scenario on for size. Standard work has been developed during a pilot, regularly subjected to improvement over a period of many weeks. It’s been battled tested and has facilitated significant, measurable improvements in productivity and quality. Then, it is introduced to another line or location, with an appropriate application of change management. (Hopefully, this includes the rigor of a net change activity to understand and compensate for any true differences in the adopter’s value stream versus the pilot’s…)

The next line or location quickly goes from no standard work to adopting the new standard work. It’s painful. Within minutes the new adopters think, “I don’t like this.” It’s not “sufficient.” It plain old su*ks.

Not long thereafter, the new adopter folks start thinking about seasoning, about “improving” the new standard work. Hey, I tried it for a day, time to exercise my Ohno-given right to kaizen. Almost, an “it’s my ball, and I’m going home…with it,” type of mentality.

So, here’s a question for you – how long should someone taste the new standard work before they are genuinely ready to consider seasoning it?

I’ve got my thoughts. What are yours?

Related posts: Standard Work Is a Verb, Leader Standard Work Should Be…Work!, Lean Decay Rate

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Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011 – Steven Spear

This is the final of my three contributing installments to John Hunter’s fourth annual review roundup. In this installment, I

Steven Spear

am honored to review Steven Spear’s self-titled site.

Steven’s website, I hesitate to call it (only) a blog, accurately reflects that he is a “lecturer, author, and expert in leadership, innovation, and operational excellence.” I don’t think that there is any hyperbole in the description.

His website categories include articles on the auto industry, business strategy, economy recovery, health care, process excellence, and Toyota. Not totally unexpected from a senior lecturer at MIT.

Spear is a five-time Shingo Award winner for his works that include the book, The High Velocity Edge (previously known under the title, Chasing the Rabbit), and the Harvard Business Review articles, Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System (co-authored) and Fixing Health Care from the Inside.

Bottom line, some fancy themselves as “thought leaders,” Steven Spear is the real deal. Like many great sensei, he can reduce what most folks cannot readily fathom into graspable concepts, while at the same time eschewing shortcuts.

He’s the guy you want the lean wannabe leaders within your organization to heed.

Here is a brief survey of Steve’s 2011 articles. Note the consistency within his message.

  • Operational Excellence: From Fragmented Vocation to Principle-Driven Profession. Now here is an absolute gift. Steven’s post addresses the notion of how the parochialism of the different camps – lean, TPS, six sigma, lean six sigma, TQM, etc. isn’t necessarily productive. His seven page paper of the same name (here’s the “gift” part – a PDF of the paper!) highlights the “commonality in objective, commonality in path, and compliment in approach” amongst the different vocations. All, when well applied, embrace the following principles:
  • Design work to capture [the] best known approach,
  • See problems when and where they occur, and
  • Solve problems with discipline.
  • …but what is the cost of stupid? We’ve all heard the truism, “you can’t fix stupid,” but I can honestly say, I never thought about the cost…until I read this brief and pointed post.
  • First, recognize that all professional disciplines—those that rise to prominence in organizations—are built on simple, sound principles (be they called ‘theories,’ like option pricing theory, or ‘laws,’ like laws of Newtonian mechanics or thermodynamics), and expertise is displayed by the application of those principles to ever more sophisticated situations in order to create value.
  • Second, reframe operational excellence to be like other professional disciplines, moving from the vocational application of tools, artifacts, and isolated applications and moving to bona fide principles of design, operation, and improvement in pursuit of maximizing created value [not merely eliminating waste].
  • What is a QI project… In response to someone’s question about how to define a QI (quality improvement) project. Steven, no surprise, cautions against tool-kit thinking. He then summarizes the core capabilities of exceptionally performing organizations:
  • Design work with sufficient specificity to capture best known approaches and to operate work systems to reveal problems when and where they occur.
  • To swarm problems when seen both to contain their spread and to investigate their root causes and develop treatments/countermeasures while the problem is still ‘hot.’
  • To share and incorporate systemically what is learned locally.
  • To lead so as to develop the seeing problems, solving problems, sharing learnings behaviors.

I hope that you visit Steven Spear’s site, read his excellent content, and purchase his book and articles.

Also, please check out ALL of John Hunter’s 2011 Management Blog Carnival activity right here!

Related posts: Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011 – A Lean Journey, Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011 – Lean Blog, Management Improvement Carnival #126

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Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011 – A Lean Journey

Tim McMahon

This is the second of my three contributing installments to John Hunter’s fourth annual review roundup. In this installment, I am honored to review Tim McMahon’s A Lean Journey blog.

Tim founded his blog in 2009 and is its primary contributor. We both live in the same geographic area and have shared several animated lunches over the last 18 months. The cuisine each time was Japanese…I know, I know.

Tim is a very talented, patient (he has coached this bumpkin on Twitter basics, for example), and humble person. He readily admits that he is learning, just like all genuine lean folks should. These admirable characteristics, when combined with his diligence, yield a terrific and continuously evolving blog.

Tim’s article, Top 10 Posts of 2011 on A Lean Journey, reflects how he published 230 posts last year! During that time his readership has increased tremendously – nearly 79,000 people visited his site in 2011.

This may make Tim the James Brown of lean blogging. Introducing Tim McMahon, the Hardest Working Man in Lean Blogging!

Anyway, before I review a handful of Tim’s top 2011 posts, I would like to share some of his blog’s regular features:

  • Lean tips. Tim frequently posts concise tips for the lean practitioner. For example, tip #371 is “Think Before You Speak.” The blog’s hyperlink will bring the reader to A Lean Journey Facebook page with further explication.
  • Lean quote. Every Friday (where does he get the time?), Tim posts an article around a particular lean or lean related quote. The November 11th quote was, “Success always starts with failure.” So true.
  • Lean Roundup. Each month, Tim compiles a list of highlighted posts from the lean blogosphere. Sometimes, I am fortunate enough to be included – like in October’s Lean Roundup.

Now, here is a brief survey of several of Tim’s top 2011 articles:

  • 12 Ways to Start Building a Continuous Improvement Culture. This post shares the slides from Tim and occasional webinar partner (and fellow-blogger at Gotta Go Lean), Jeff Hajek’s webinar of the same name. Three of the 12 ways include: plan for 10% improvement time, have the proper attitude towards failure, and don’t harvest (all of your) gains. Go to the article to see the other 9 ways contained within the 18 page slide deck.
  • Ten Ways to Show Respect for People. The Toyota Way is founded on two pillars, continuous improvement and respect for people. Tim shares ten straightforward, but not necessarily easy ways, to show respect for each individual. How can you do it? Keep your promises, be on time, look at people when they talk, let the buck stop with you…
  • Visual Management Board. This article is primarily about Lantech’s Allison Meyer, as she explains within the embedded video how she and her team manage marketing activities using A3’s and a related visual board. Maybe, someday, I’ll embed a video that’s not Monty Python or cartoon related.
  • The 6 Pillars of 6S – Free Posters. There’s nothing like free stuff, especially if it’s good. Here Tim provides PDF versions of his company’s 6S posters. Why re-invent the wheel?

I hope that you visit Tim McMahon’s blog, read his excellent content, and participate in his ever-growing community.

Also, please check out ALL of John Hunter’s 2011 Management Blog Carnival activity right here!

Related posts: Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011 – Lean Blog, Management Improvement Carnival #126, Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2010 – John Shook’s Lean Management Column, Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2010 – Lean Homebuilding, Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2010 – Evolving Excellence

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Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011 – Lean Blog

Mark Graban

This is the first of my three contributing installments to John Hunter’s fourth annual review roundup. In this installment, I am honored to review Mark Graban’s Lean Blog, a “blog about Lean in hospitals, business, and our world.”

Mark founded Lean Blog in January 2005, and is its lead blogger and podcaster. (By the way, back in 2005, I couldn’t even spell the word “blog.”  Of course, as I often prove, there are a lot of words that I can’t spell properly.)

When I think lean blogger, the first person that enters my mind is Mark Graban. Quite frankly, Mark is a prodigious blogger. He generates an amazing quantity of unique, entertaining, thought-leading and thought-provoking material.

Accordingly, my simple roundup entry cannot do this lean social media giant justice. Fortunately, if you desire a MUCH better and more comprehensive collection of the best of Lean Blog 2011, Mark Graban has an answer…

True to his pioneering nature, Mark is offering an eBook of 2011 Lean Blog posts. It is a compilation of many of his best posts…using a unique “Lean Publishing” technique.

In any event, here is my measly sample of excellent 2011 Lean Blog articles:

  • (Complaining About) Resistance is Futile. Mark’s post first hits the reader in the gut with Stephen Parry’s tweet, “The resistance to change is proportional to your lack of leadership.”  Mark challenges folks to reflect on why there is resistance…and then to appropriately address the root cause(s), NOT use the fog of resistance as an excuse for unsuccessful transformation.
  • Does Setting a Goal for Number of Kaizens Violate “Kaizen Spirit”? Here Graban reminds us why Deming cautioned against the use of quotas. Kaizen must be intrinsically motivated, but do targets around things like number of implemented suggestions per person per year or number of kaizen events make sense? Take a look at the “conversation” contained within the 25 comments that this post garnered.
  • Checklists Promoted and Debated on “Grey’s Anatomy” Mark routinely and effectively interjects popular culture (including a Grey’s Anatomy scene) within his work. Checklists can be a critical tool of standardized work, as Dr. Atul Gawande, reflected within his book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right. Mark forces the reader to think about the pragmatic use of the checklist.
  • Coaching, not Berating, when Mistakes are Made. Within this post, Mark shares an important lesson gleaned from college football coaching – both good and bad. His alma mater’s (Northwestern) coach, Pat Fitzgerald’s quote says a lot, “More than in the NFL, a college head coach’s reaction to adversity determines whether his team learns from mistakes or fears making them so much it makes more.” Lean shares a lot with college football.
  • What’s Changed in Lean Healthcare Since 2008? Mark is the author of the Shingo Award-winning book, Lean Hospitals and co-author of the forthcoming book, Healthcare Kaizen. So, his perspective on the evolution of lean healthcare is noteworthy to say the least. Some of his lean healthcare related observations:
    • Less tool-driven, greater attention to management systems,
    • More focus on quality, less on just cost, and
    • More focus on daily kaizen, not just events.

I hope that you visit Mark Graban’s blog, sample the lean social media smorgasbord, and participate in the amazing community that is the Lean Blog.

Also, please check out ALL of John Hunter’s 2011 Management Blog Carnival activity right here!

Related posts: Management Improvement Carnival #126, Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2010 – John Shook’s Lean Management Column, Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2010 – Lean Homebuilding, Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2010 – Evolving Excellence

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When the Student’s Lens Changes

As a lean coach, it is always rewarding to witness the change in a lean learner’s “lens” – when the student sees things in a different way.

Or suddenly sees things that they never saw before.

It means that the student is thinking in a different way…in a leaner way.

Sometimes this drives interesting behavior. Like following a car that has a license plate containing what perhaps has a lean message. Then, finally tracking the car within a side of the road parking lot and snapping a picture of that license with their cell phone.

Several relatively new lean practitioners did just that. They believed that this particular license plate had cleverly captured the lean axiom of, “no problem is big problem.”

Pretty cool, huh?

Of course, they later determined that the license plate was really about P = NP, a major unsolved problem in computer science.

Hey, it’s the thought that counts.

And, of course, it was funny as heck.

Related posts: Another Classic Lean Question – “Do You See What I See?”, Line of Sight, Employee Engagement, and Daily Kaizen

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Reflection on the Sensei’s Legacy – Life and Lean

Earlier this month, my father passed away after a long and stoic battle with cancer. He was days away from his 80th birthday. By virtually all measures, his was a life well-lived and fruitful. Jim Hamel left many who love him.

Death prompts reflection by those who remain this side of eternity. Within that mix, the word “legacy” often comes to mind.

One Merriam-Webster definition of legacy is as follows:

something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past <the legacy of the ancient philosophers>.

The philosopher example makes sense. My father was a bit philosophical to say the least, especially relative to his fundamental attitude toward human life and destiny. He also had a wicked wit. It seems that his philosophy informed his wit…or was it the other way around?

When we think of legacy, we think necessarily of things that endure.

My father taught me many things, including how to play baseball and hockey, how to shoot, and how to tie a neck tie. In fact, he was a professional educator. Teaching was in his blood. But, those things are not truly part of his legacy.

When I was young, I was constantly impressed by how he seemed to bump into so many of his past students. Incredulously, I would ask, “Dad, how do you know so many people?”

These former students, no matter where we were, seemed to find him and then cheerfully say hello, introduce their young children, reminisce about days gone by, and so on. My father taught high school history, French and psychology (before becoming an assistant principal), but I am quite certain that the affection and memories of these students were not constitutive of those subjects. It was something more.

Much of my father’s legacy to me includes perseverance, toughness, fidelity, sacrifice and the giving of self for family and perhaps the art of wry, smart-aleck humor. The baseball, hockey, shooting, etc. were, in many ways, the stage for imparting the important stuff.

And so it goes for lean. Yes, of course there’s got to be a lean lesson in here somewhere!

My lean teachers taught me standard work, visual controls, pull systems, and the like. These things were in the category of tools and systems. I am forever grateful that my sensei imparted their knowledge to me about these important things.

But the enduring stuff, the real lean legacy is more about mentorship, humility, respect for every individual, employee involvement and engagement, the constant seeking of perfection, creating value for the customer, etc. These principles were consistently part of the curriculum…even if the student (me) did not notice it at the time.

Yes, legacy is more about principles, defined here as follows (Modern Catholic Dictionary, 1999).

principle: that from which something proceeds or on which it depends as its origin, cause, or source of being or action.

So, while I am hopeful that my clients, colleagues and friends will find my teaching around lean tools and systems helpful, I hope that my lean legacy will transcend those mere things. If so, I will have done my father proud.

Related posts: Cutting Edge Visual (and Sensory) Control, The Intrinsic Discipline of the Lean Leader

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Halloween Snow and Two Lean Lessons

Along with hundreds of thousands of folks in the Northeast, I am in my 6th day without power. I expect at least a few more such days before the lights come on…and the heat.

Heck, they just sent the National Guard to my town, and an adjacent one, to start clearing downed trees.

The root cause of this whole mess was about a foot of snow on heavily treed land…when virtually all of the trees were still laden with their leaves. Near many trees were houses and power lines. You can guess the rest.

Last Sunday was full of chain saws and snow blowers. Now, it’s a lot of dark and cold. But, we’ll make do.

The point here is that there’s a lean lesson somewhere. In fact, I think there are two related lessons.

Before the snow started flying, my youngest noted that my neighbor, Rich was blowing the leaves and pine needles off of his driveway. Rich later shared that he wanted to avoid the messy mix of snow, leaves and needles. At the time, I must admit, I was thinking perhaps that wasn’t a bad idea.

Well, shortly thereafter the heavy snows came. By around 3:00 p.m., the first tree split and hit my house – just a glancing blow, mind you. After that, it really started getting bad. The power went out and the next 12 plus hours were full of crashing tree limbs and trunks. My family and I slept, more or less, in the basement.

At sunrise, we could see the full scope of the damage. We had been absolutely hammered.

It was chain saw, shovel, and snow blower time. Fortunately, my neighbors came by and helped clear a path through my driveway. We then patrolled the neighborhood and cleared the roadway.

(Note to self: there should be a legal limit on the number of chain saw wielding amateurs within a 20 foot radius…)

Well, during this orgy of fuel and bar and chain oil, I recalled a figure that is within my Kaizen Event Fieldbook. This leads to:

Lesson #1: When the muda and the stakes are high, ditch the scalpel and carving knife. Instead, go for the chain saw.

In other words, don’t screw around with making things elegant. If you’ve got to get the tree off of your house or clear a path in your driveway (or road), go big and go aggressive. Make it pretty later.

Too often during lean transformation efforts, folks will spend too much time, resources, and political capital trying to make things perfect. Well, perfect never happens. Get the value to flow better, as quickly as possible.

And my neighbor’s pre-snow leaf and pine needle blowing? Well that, as admitted by Rich, was just plain stupid.

Lesson #2: Quickly understand and acknowledge the magnitude of the coming storm and take proportionate action.

How often do we give the proverbial patient the proverbial vitamins while he is on the proverbial operating room table?!

Put another way, bad things happen when we: 1) are ignorant of the pending competitive challenges for our business, 2) choose to ignore the challenges (maybe they’ll never materialize?!), and/or 3) do something lame that will never sufficiently address the challenge.

Yes, there’s nothing like a little post-storm hansei (reflection)!!

Related posts: The Best or Nothing, Kaizen Principle: Bias for Action

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Eight Ways to Mess up the Lean Function…and Sabotage the Transformation

The lean function, a.k.a. kaizen promotion office (KPO), operation excellence group, JIT promotion office, company (fill in the name here) lean business system office, continuous improvement office, etc., is a critical resource in any successful lean transformation effort. The KPO does and supports a bunch of necessary stuff, including: change management, people development, daily kaizen deployment, kaizen event management, lean business system curriculum development, and kaizen office management.

If that’s the case, why does leadership get the KPO so wrong, so often?

Often the root cause lies somewhere in the leadership doesn’t know what it doesn’t know region. True transformation is expansive and very, very hard.

Deploying the lean function in Seal Team 6 style, with little or no attention to the rest of lean implementation “details,” and expecting great things is fantasy stuff. Consistent with that notion, there are a bunch of ways to misapply the KPO and screw up the lean transformation. Here are eight ways, among many:

  • Skimp on staffing the lean team. A “rule of thumb” for staffing the KPO is 1%-2% of total company/site headcount. George Koenigsaecker even suggests that the KPO complement should be as much as 3% of the population. For non-lean thinkers, this seems like an outrageous misappropriation of resources.
  • Resource the lean function “late” in the transformation. This one is akin to skimping. When the KPO team is built well after the lean launch, there’s a lot catching up to do in the area of selection, training and development, and deployment. The lean function needs to be ahead of the curve, not behind it.
  • Pick the wrong folks for the group. The quality assurance guy does not necessarily always equal the KPO guy. KPO members should be selected based upon core competencies (like group leadership, change management, etc.), passion and, absent lean technical skills, lean technical aptitude. Poor selection means a lack of lean function effectiveness and, eventually, a “do-over.” Do it right the first time.
  • Abdicate lean leadership to the KPO. Leadership, while often a shared responsibility, cannot be abdicated…especially when it comes to a lean transformation. Stakeholders can smell superficial leadership a mile away. A good OpEx team will serve as effective change agents, but they can’t be the only ones. Batch-head leaders are batch-heads, even if the lean function reports to them.
  • Have the CI guys deliver all of the lean training. It’s powerful stuff when the leader learns and then trains their team in lean principles (at least the basics). When it’s all outsourced to the KPO, there’s little skin in the game.
  • Stick the OpEx team with the kaizen newspaper items. Pretty obvious here – transferring follow-through on post kaizen activity to the CI team instead of the stakeholders kills ownership, engagement and learning.
  • Turn the lean business system office into auditors. When the JIT Promotion folks serve as the routine 5S or lean assessment auditors, without stakeholder engagement, they may be seen more as “gotcha” guys, a plain nuisance, or even worse, totally inconsequential purveyors of the program of the month.
  • Hold the KPO, and only the KPO, accountable. There’s nothing like it when the lean function, and only the lean function, takes the heat for a lack of lean implementation progress. All of the other leaders quickly understand that their commitment is optional and there is always a designated scapegoat when the going gets tough.

So, what am I missing?

Related posts: Who’s Most Responsible for KPO Development? The KPO!, The Kaizen Promotion Office Does What? 8 Critical Deliverables

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Lean Decay Rate

I’m certainly no physicist, but I think there’s a worthy analogy between the decay of radioisotopes and lean behavior within an organization.

According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ webpage on Radiation Emergency Medical Management:

  • “Radioactive half-life is the time required for a quantity of a radioisotope to decay by half.
  • If the half-life of an isotope is relatively short, e.g. a few hours, most of the radioactivity will be gone in a few days.
  • If the half-life of an isotope is relatively long, e.g. 80 years, it will take a long time for significant decay to occur.”

So, enough about isotopes. What about lean “culturetopes?”

If “lean” was discontinued within your organization, how long would it take for people to revert to their native batch-and-queue behaviors? How long would it take for most of the “leanness” to be gone?

Silly question?

Perhaps. But, I think the question can prompt some useful reflection.

What would happen if the number one executive lean leader within your company left for greener pastures? Would the lean transformation stop dead in its tracks? Or would the organization shake it off and, due to the profound depth of the lean cultural evolution, continue rolling?

What would happen if there was a sudden, substantial drop in business? What if the company introduced some wizbang new technology? What if your company was acquired? What if…?

Is your lean half-life measurable in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years?

Click to enlarge

I think that the Shingo Prize Behavior Assessment Scale (see figure) can provide meaningful insight into an organization’s lean cultural half-life. The further to the right on the Assessment Scale, the longer the lean half-life…by a lot!

What are your thoughts?

Related posts: Line of Sight, Employee Engagement, and Daily Kaizen, Want a Kaizen Culture? Take Your Vitamin C!, Bridging to Daily Kaizen – 15 (or so) Questions

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