08/07/14 by Ankit Patel | continuous improvement, lean, lean business system, lean culture, lean manufacutring, Uncategorized |

Lean is a bit like ice cream and children.  Everyone thinks that theirs is the best.  Unlike ice cream or children there is no one “best” way to do Lean.  In-fact it will look like the complete opposite in some industries.  Because of this you end up with what it…

01/30/14 by Ankit Patel | continuous improvement |

    In The Continuous Improvement (Lean) Paradox Part I we talked about how only 2% of companies that start Lean get the results they expected.  In part II we’ll talk about bridging the gap between expectations and results.  We talked about the reasons why Lean efforts fail and not a…

01/23/14 by Ankit Patel | continuous improvement, Uncategorized |

The goal for many companies is the always improve their business.  So naturally this mean some sort of continuous improvement program being launched.  Let’s take a look at some statistics on Lean or other Continuous Improvement methods and how they actually look in companies.  70% of manufacturing plants are currently…

10/09/13 by Ankit Patel | behavior change, change management, company culture, continuous improvement |

Listen to the conference call on this topic Starting Lean other change efforts can seem overwhelming.  When considering where to start a lean effort or any other change effort there are two main considerations: 1) What is the best place to start from a business performance standpoint (technical consideration) 2)…

12/08/11 by Ankit Patel | appreciative inquiry, behavior change, change management, continuous improvement |

This is the abbreviated post for the more detailed post on how to make change management work. Many of my clients approach me because they want one of three things.1) Process improvement2) Strategy facilitation3) Cultural changes Mostly they ask for the first two choices because they are more concrete.  When clients choose…

04/15/10 by Ankit Patel | continuous improvement, lean culture, thinking thursday, veterinary clinic |

Often times in the business world we want to hit the home run. Heck at every company I worked at there were awards for hitting “home runs!” But what about all the base hits and sacrifice fly balls? I’m not trying to confuse the business world with baseball but the…

01/25/10 by Ankit Patel | continuous improvement |

This past week I had an opportunity to visit a family medical practice to see if there was opportunity for improvement. The practice ranks in the top 2% of solo practitioners in the U.S. in terms of profit and volume so should the business be happy with with being at…