Bob Emiliani's Blog
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Bob Emiliani is a professor of Lean management at Central Connecticut State University. He is an author of 17 books and 47 research papers based on his deep researches in the fields of leadership and management. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Emiliani has 15 years of industry experience and he is more than passionate about Lean management.
Bob Emiliani's Blog
2M ago
The fact is, Lean underperforms compared to those who pursue TPS. It is true that some companies pursue a TPS-like vision complete with Just-in-Time and call it “Lean,” but that is rare. Most companies engagement with Lean is limited to the use of tools for everyday solving problems within the context of classical management ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
2M ago
People have been trying to convince top business leaders of the merits of progressive management for over 100 years. There is no data on the many different ways that have been tried. Nevertheless, one can easily imagine that the vast majority highlight features that would seem to be of greatest interest to CEOs such as ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
2M ago
Most of us have never been a CEO. We only have a vague understanding of what it is really like to be a CEO. But we do have a clear understanding of what it is like to “work for” CEOs based on our employment experiences, and as followers we have clear thoughts on what the ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
2M ago
In a recent blog post, CEOs, Lean, and Preference Falsification, I answered the question, “Why do CEOs support Lean when they have little interest in Lean?” In this blog post, I answer the question, “Why don’t CEOs publicly proclaim their dislike of Lean?” There is ample evidence to support the claim that they “dislike Lean ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
2M ago
In August and September of 2024, I spent a great deal of time translating and reading four Japanese language books about Taiichi Ohno and writing blog posts that highlighted key passages from the books and provided critical commentary on each passage. The four blog posts, combined, are a lengthy 32,000 words comprising 58 pages. The ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
2M ago
My four earlier blog posts about the Japanese language books Album of Management Revolution, Taiichi Ohno’s Records: Founder of the Toyota Production System, The Origin of Toyota’s Strength: Taiichi Ohno’s Kaizen Spirit, and Taiichi Ohno and the Toyota Production System, offer much to reflect on about Taiichi Ohno’s thinking and his work as a genba ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
3M ago
I recently purchased an interesting book titled The Savior of Japan’s Revival: Taiichi Ohno and the Toyota Production System by Setsuo Mito. The book was published in 2003 by Yoichi Katoya and Seiryu Publishing Co., Ltd. For more than 40 years, Mito-san was an economic journalist writing for various publications and is also the author of ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
3M ago
I recently purchased an excellent book titled The Origin of Toyota’s Strength: Taiichi Ohno’s Kaizen Spirit. It is a commemorative book, first published in 1990 to honor the passing of Taiichi Ohno in 1990. The book consists of memorials, reprints of lectures, interviews, and articles published in years prior. It was assembled into book form by ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
3M ago
If you do Lean, you are copying Toyota and their production system — probably extremely poorly, but you are copying nonetheless. After all, Lean is a copy of TPS — a rather poor copy, but a copy nonetheless. And if the mantra has long been “don’t copy Toyota,” why was Lean created? Anyway, all of ..read more
Bob Emiliani's Blog
3M ago
You may be old enough to remember the lever-release aluminum ice cube tray. It was invented by Edward H. Roberts, a design engineer at General Electric, in the mid-1940s. The trays were great in their day and remained in use into the 1970s (for those who had old refrigerators). The lever-release ice cube trays were ..read more