Pathstone Group

For 22 years, Howard Schultz acted as CEO of one of the most iconic companies of the twentieth century: Starbucks. When he started...

The easy way out usually leads back in. In a modern version of an ancient Sua story, a passerby encounters a drunk on his hands and knees...

Workshop blindness occurs when something is so normal and everyday in the environment that we easily lose sight of the opportunities and...

One of the most fundamental elements of creating a lean environment is operating with one-piece-flow. The thought of processing one unit...

In 1939, America’s Snow Cruiser was designed to tackle the intense and treacherous conditions of Antarctica—and to this day, it is still...

A SIPOC diagram is a tool used by a team to identify all relevant elements of a process improvement project before work begins. It helps...

The new generations are peers some people love to hate. The generation of cat videos, duck face selfies, and trendy eyebrows, made-up...

Ultimately, the goal of performance metrics is to drive improved results. Otherwise, why bother? Data show better performances among...

Three key concepts in manufacturing that often get misconstrued or even used synonymously are productivity, effectiveness, and...

Process improvement is about persistence and adaptation to constant change. Something easy to say, but it requires a strong mindset and...

An improvement roadmap is a map that displays project-related information. There are different types of roadmaps for different projects,...

The coauthors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman's were Gallup analysts who in 1999 drew insights from 25 years of Gallup studies of...

Why do we go to McDonald’s? Do they have the best burgers? Probably not. Do they have the best fries? Maybe that is a topic worthy of a...

As experienced managers and professionals, we intuitively recognize the Pareto Principle (80 20 Rule) and the concepts of the vital few...

The DeLorean DMC-12 sport car became and remained famous as the time-traveling car in the Back to the Future movies, but the actual...

In Toyota's production system, it defines three Enemies of Lean: 1) Muda (waste), 2) Muri (overburden), and 3) Mura (unevenness). The...

Design for Improvement is a model that puts the focus of process perfection in the design/engineering process. The key focus is ensuring...

February 1999 saw the publication of The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel, followed by The McKinsey Mind in 2002. Rasiel was a former...

We can never expect different results from a team by sitting in the corner office and only attending KPI meetings. Instead, we need to...

Waste, in “Lean” terms, is any activity that does not add value to a product, costs money and resources, and earns nothing for a...