Driving Operational Excellence

Interview with Harvey Dershin  Deploying and Sustaining OpEx: Push or Pull  Welcome to this edition my Operational Excellence Edge radio show.  I feel humbled to have joining us in this show Mr. Harvey Denshin, who boasts 50 years of experience in aspects of what we call OpEx today in many sectors.  I did not know ANYONE who got started leveraging OpEx in the 1980’s in healthcare - until now.  The title of this radio show is very intriguing – should we push or pull in establishing and sustaining a major improvement initiative?  Listen on to find out.  To you and your team – great success!  Ron Crabtree

Interview with Rich Holm  Engagement and The Key Steps to Successful Lean Manufacturing  Welcome to this edition of my Operational Excellence Edge Radio Show.  The sad fact is this: Waaaaayyyy too many manufacturers FAIL to get the benefits they should from Lean implementation efforts.  Here Mr. Rich Holm will be joining us to share his wisdom on success in applying Lean Six Sigma in Manufacturing.  I was very intrigued to hear some of his ideas for success – you will too.  To you and your team – great success!  Ron Crabtree

Interview with Mike Jones LSS implementation challenges in financial services - tips for success  Welcome to this edition of my Operational Excellence Edge radio show.  Most of the community of folks interested in Operational Excellence, Lean Six Sigma and Business Process Reengineering are familiar with issues blocking success in manufacturing, but as the financial services industry has been embracing OpEx there have emerged some interesting aspects practitioners need to know about.   Eventually every practitioner will need to do stuff in the financial services side of their business – so there are great lessons to be learned here for everyone – be they novice or expert.  Joining me here is Mr. Mike Jones, someone I greatly admire and respect in the area of LSS deployment who will share some gems of wisdom.  To you and your team, great success!  Ron Crabtree

Interview with Dr. Rocky Pinheiro Breaking the Status Quo Mindset in Healthcare in Implementing Lean Six Sigma From my personal experience implementing Operational Excellence and Lean Six Sigma in healthcare organizations is difficult at best.  As the title of this radio show suggests, “maintaining the status quo” can be a huge impediment to success in making big changes in healthcare.  Here Dr. Rocky Pinheiro will join me to share some hard-won insights to breaking through the status quo barrier in healthcare organizations. To you and your team – great success! Ron Crabtree

Interview with Don Anthony "Secrets” to LSS Implementation Success in Healthcare In this edition of the Operational Excellence Edge radio show we will be taking a hard look at what it takes to succeed in implementing Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare.  Joining me is Mr. Don Anthony – who will share with us what works, and more importantly, what DOES NOT WORK in 8 years of practical experience in applying LSS in Healthcare. If you are an expert in applying LSS in Healthcare or know nothing at all – you will find some gems of wisdom here.

Interview with Karen Young The Importance of Customer Engagement in Six Sigma Everybody talks about really knowing what customers want, and ostensibly, we all do that, right?  Well, maybe not.  Karen Young, a co-author in the book Driving Operational Excellence, is featured in this edition of the Operational Excellence Edge Radio Show.  If you are interested in the latest thinking about truly engaging customers and how the new Baldrige Award criteria for that lines up with Six Sigma thinking, then you are in for a treat.

Interview with Mike Bresko Making Continuous Improve a Routine In this edition of Operational Excellence Edge Radio Show, we tackle the difficult reality that talkingabout making continuous improvement part of daily life is much easier than actually doing it. Here, Mr. Mike Bresko, co-author in the book Driving Operational Excellence, will join us to discuss his ‘secret sauce’ for making continuous improvement a sustainable daily routine in your organization.

Interview with Doug Von Feldt  Measuring the effectiveness and value of your LSS training program  In this edition of the Operational Excellence Edge Radio show Mr. Don Von Fleldt with join us to tackle a very tricky topic – validating the value of training in Lean Six Sigma.  One of my personal axes to grind with most ‘training’ programs is they don’t get results, or worse, leave everyone with a really bad taste in their mouth, believing that LSS does not work in their organization.   To you your team – great success!

Interview with Bill Cooper  Leading Beyond Tradition – a Model for Modern Management  In this edition of the Operational Excellence Edge radio show we have joining us author and expert in applying Lean Six Sigma through a carefully crafted philosophy of management, Mr. William Cooper.  You are in for a real treat here, as he has some unique perspectives, seeing he is a retired Chief of Police.  Like me, I’ll bet you can wait to see what he has to say.  Best to you and your team in success.

Interview with Dave Dubinsky   Top Performance Through Daily Management Thinking If you talk to executives and managers routinely about metrics and goal setting as keys to success in Operational Excellence, then invariably you will end up at some point discussing how to make each and every employee accountable for some key aspects so that we have everyone engaged to help us succeed. Trouble is, very few organizations do this effectively.  We’d like to introduce David Dubinsky, one of the authors of Driving Operational Excellence, to share with us here his ‘secret sauce’ for deploying daily management.  It’s taken Dave many years in industries around the world to glean all of the gems of wisdom you will learn here.

Interview with Dr. Pietro Savo  Lean Make Over  Welcome to this edition of my Operational Excellence Edge Radio Show.  If you think Lean is just for manufacturing you will find this edition of interest.  Joining me is Dr. Pietro Savo – who will share some incredible insights about lean – that cut across all industries and disciplines.  To you and your team – great success!

Interview with Charles Shillingburg  Breaking Through to a Higher Performance Organization  When we got survey results from over 350 business peers to shape the content for the book Driving Operational Excellence, it was clear that getting clarity on how to apply Operational Excellence and LSS to the strategy-side of things was critical.    In this interview, we hear from Charles Shillingburg, one of the co-authors of Driving Operational Excellence.  As a point of interest, the very first chapter in the book in the section on strategy is Charles’ chapter: Peeling the Onion for Higher Performance.

Interview with James Hardin Operational Excellence’s Role in Fixing Our Education System One industry that affects everyone at some stage in their lives is educating our children. If you have ever wondered about the possibilities of leveraging Operational Excellence in Public Education,  then this interview will be of extreme interest to you. In this interview, we will talk with James Hardin – a 40-year veteran of public education and a co-author in the Driving Operational Excellencebook.   Here you will be exposed to some ideas that you may find quite intriguing and helpful in applying process improvement strategies to that critical element – public education.

Interview with Ed Feeny Sustaining a Lean Six Sigma Implementation  One of the hard and cruel facts is that 8 or 9 organizations of 10 embarking on a major change initiative like Lean Six Sigma (LSS) fail to get the results they should.  Going hand-in-hand with that problem is actually making LSS sticky for the long run.  Mr. Ed Feeny will join me here to share some hard-earned gems of wisdom to help you close the gap on these problems.

Interview with Dan Walker Getting clear about what customers really want Every once in a while you run into someone who shares an observation that makes you stop in your tracks and really THINK about something in a new way.  Dan Walker is someone who did that for me. Before that, let me share what he told me first. Dan asked me a critical question:  Are manufacturers in the businesses of making things, or are they actually in fact providing services? I won’t spoil Dan’s points here, but just think about this idea. When we make thing to sell, say a bicycle, when we get paid for that bike, what are we really getting paid for?  The bike itself, or for the service we provided to develop, tool-up, make and deliver that bike to the consumer in a cost and time effective way?

What we can learn from Sherlock Holmes in making LSS more Successful If you are scratching your head about the idea that Sherlock Holmes can teach us to be more effective in Operational Excellence and Lean Six Sigma, you are in good company. Mr. Gregg Young, President of Young Associates and author of the new book, Reasoning Backwards: Sherlock Holmes’ Guide to Effective Problem Solving will provide valuable insights. In problem solving on any scale it’s about getting to the ‘needles in the haystack’ in terms of the true root causes and best conclusions. You’ll find useful insights here!

Interview with Gary Wickett   Identifying and Eliminating Sources of Waste in Your Organization   In this interview, we are going to touch on a subject that occurs in every kind of business setting and which is near and dear to our hearts  – indentifying and eliminating sources of waste.   We’ll hear from Gary Wickett, one of the co-authors of Driving Operational Excellence.  In Chapter 14, Gary takes a refreshing look at practical ways to think about waste – and a very pragmatic and simple approach to smoking out the true root causes of waste.   One thing that is great about Gary’s chapter is that it is specific to the service industry – he uses a fantastic case study on applying these techniques in a law firm.  So no matter what you do – production or service provider – you will find something of value for your organization.

Interview with Forrest W. Breyfogle III   Is Your Management System Broken? What would you say if someone said that current management systems are broken?  Your management system?  If you are intrigued and interested in learning more, you are in for a treat. In this edition of the Operational Excellence Edge ezine series, you get to meet another of the authors of Driving Operational Excellence.  Forrest Breyfogle, author of 13 books in the area of process improvement, quality, and Lean Six Sigma, shares some of his unique insights on these topics and more.  Forrest will share his views about Toyota’s recent struggles  along with other insights you will find very useful.

Interview with Steve Cimorelli   Leveraging Lean Six Sigma in your Supply Chain  In this edition of Operational Excellence Edge Radio Show, you get to meet Steve Cimorelli, author and expert on the application of the OpEx aspects of Lean Six Sigma in the context of supply chains. Even if you not are in the business of making things, you will find this very helpful, as the concepts are universal in the context of a ‘chain’ of events being required to deliver value to our customers.

Interview with Kierson   It’ Ron Crabtree and it is my pleasure to bring you this edition of the Operational Excellence Edge Radio Show titled: “Alignment of your Management Team - key to a new and prosperous future”     It’s my pleasure to introduce a friend and business associate, Mr. Miles Kierson.  He is the founder of Kierson Consulting, LLC and has worked to help some very impressive organizations figure out how to make a better, prosperous future a reality.  Some of these include Sears (U.S. and Canada), ConocoPhillips, Allstate, and Ameritech – all well-known players in thier industries.  Miles has written a very cool book entitled The Transformational Power of Executive Alignment.  Miles, can you share a little about yourself for my readers and listeners?  What’s your background – and how did you get into the area of executive alignment?