Regular uninterrupted activity is required of all people in the organization. Small wins keep up the enthusiasm and reinforce habit.

Improvement doesn’t happen by accident.
Must have projects ready for unplanned opportunities to react.
Improvement time is invested, not spent.

Everyone fails from time to time.
Do you punish or treat it as part of learning?
Failure can not be avoided. It is necessary learning that must occur.

Don’t eat your seed corn.
Put some gains in reserve to make future improvements.
10% of time should be spent on improvement efforts.

In the US we love heroes.
Teams are greater than the sum of the individual parts.
Teams need to be mentored and developed.

Create a foundation for success.
• 5S
• Process documentation
• Operations reviews
• Daily management
• Stand-up meetings

It is true you get what you measure.
Performance measures need to be aligned with what you want to achieve.
Use them to drive good behaviors.
Think long term.

Teams should know they are appreciated.
• Financial: bonuses, raises, promotions, commissions
• Non-financial: parking spaces, days off, free lunch
• Recognition
Must be linked to actions to get better. (No magical improvements.)

Go see for yourself at the place where the work is done.
Going to the Gemba gets the entire team involved in identifying and solving problems.
It is grounded in fact finding using actual conditions from the actual workers who perform the work.

Encourage and foster learning and teaching at all levels.
Build knowledge in problem solving thinking and countermeasures.
Encourage continuous improvement.

Focus on education.
Mistakes are OK during learning process.
Small changes every day.
Everyone participates.
You are never done.

Leaders must create the vision, then energize and enable the organization to achieve it.
Strategy makes decision making clear and consistent.
An integrated strategy helps develop and strengthen interfaces amongst other teams.

Deploying Lean is not for amateurs.
Lean experts provide mentoring and support throughout your Lean deployment.
Identify both current skills and forecasted requirements.
Fill the skills gap with comprehensive training.

Highly performing and effective teams use a set of values that encourage listening and responding constructively to views expressed by others, giving others the benefit of the doubt, providing support, and recognizing the interests and achievements of others.

Inventory turns is an established measure. It is useful to turn this measure into three measures – one for each of raw material, work in progress, and finished goods. Because WIP is fully under your own control where as raw materials and finished goods are not fully under your own control.