Lean Math Blog

LeanMath Blog is a weblog for the purpose of helping lean thinkers conduct math-assisted kaizen. It's a new entrant in the lean blogosphere. We know what you’re thinking, “Lean Math?!” Now, that’s a subject that evokes passion in the heart of every lean practitioner…right? But, the truth is effective lean transformations require some level of math, whether it’s the often deceptively simple takt time calculation, sizing kanbans, calculating process capability, or anything in between. It’s hard to get away from math. There is no such thing as math-free lean and certainly not math-free six sigma! Lean Math is not intended to be some purely academic study and it does not pretend to be part of the heart and soul of lean principles. Rather, it’s a tool and a construct for thinking. Here we want to integrate lean math theories and examples with experimentation and application. Some background. Within the next year, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers will be publishing a book, tentatively entitled, Lean Math. Mark Hamel, author of the Shingo Award-winning book, Kaizen Event Fieldbook and founder of the Gemba TalesTM blog, and Michael O’Connor, Ph.D. (a.k.a. Dr. Mike) are co-authoring this work. They are also getting a ton (!) of help from Larry Loucka, friend, colleague, and fellow-blogger at Lean Sigma Supply Chain. In the end, we hope the blog, along with its fledgling community, lives up to the tag line, “Figuring to improve.”