Month: May 2026

11 May 2026

The 7M Process Assessment: Why Most Operational Problems Are Hiding in Plain Sight

Walk into any factory on a difficult morning and you’ll hear the same conversation. A line is down, a customer is escalating, a shipment is at risk, and somewhere near the machine three people are pointing at a fourth one who isn’t in the room.

The 7M Process Assessment: Why Most Operational Problems Are Hiding in Plain Sight
by Surya Narayan
11 May 2026
Walk into any factory on a difficult morning and you’ll hear the same conversation. A line is down, a customer is escalating, a shipment is at risk, and somewhere near the machine three people are pointing at a fourth one who isn’t in the room.
The Wartime Training Method Quietly Powering Today’s Lean Factories
by Surya Narayan
30 April 2026
On factory floors, a training method born inside the United States War Department in the 1940s is once again teaching supervisors how to cut defects, raise output and keep their best people. It is called Training Within Industry, or TWI, and after eight decades, its
The Fishbone That Changed Everything
by Surya Narayan
23 April 2026
A human story behind the Ishikawa diagram Have you ever sat in a meeting where something went wrong and everyone started pointing fingers? The machine broke, the supplier was late, the new guy made a mistake, and suddenly no one agrees on anything. An hour
Standard Work Is Killing Your Improvement Culture. Here’s Why We Still Teach It.
by Surya Narayan
15 April 2026
We teach our clients Standard Work every day. And every day, we also teach them why Standard Work alone will never be enough. This sounds like a contradiction. It is. And it is the most important contradiction in Lean. Here at True North Lean, we
The New Face of Kaizen and Lean: Trending Techniques Reshaping the Future of Work
by Surya Narayan
12 April 2026
Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, has been quietly transforming workplaces for decades. But in 2026, it looks nothing like it did ten years ago. Driven by artificial intelligence, connected factories, and a growing pressure to do more with less, Kaizen and Lean methodologies
On the Factory Floor, a Simple Board Is Changing How Managers Lead
by Surya Narayan
11 April 2026
Walk into almost any well-run factory today and you’ll likely find it somewhere near the production line, a board covered in numbers, colored magnets, and hand-written notes that, at first glance, looks almost unremarkable. Look closer, though, and you’ll see the nerve center of the
From Stability to Excellence: A Precision Blueprint for Lean Leaders
by Surya Narayan
3 April 2026
Most Lean transformations fail not in the conference room but on the shop floor, not because the strategy was wrong but because the discipline to execute it consistently was absent. Sustainable manufacturing excellence is not a destination reached through sporadic improvement events or technology investments
Lean Thinking Is Built on Discipline, Not Fashion
by Surya Narayan
2 March 2026
Why the pioneers of Lean continue to influence how serious organisations compete Management history is full of movements that arrive with energy and fade with equal speed. Lean, however, has endured for more than seven decades. Its longevity is not accidental. It survives because it