Month: August 2026

5 August 2026

The Waste We See Is Rarely the Problem We Need to Solve

Find the waste and remove it. Teams map unnecessary movement, waiting, defects, excess inventory, and repeated approvals. These observations are valuable, but they can point us towards the wrong conclusion. Waste is visible, so it receives attention. The conditions that produced it often remain untouched.

The Waste We See Is Rarely the Problem We Need to Solve
by Vijay Allaham
5 August 2026
Find the waste and remove it. Teams map unnecessary movement, waiting, defects, excess inventory, and repeated approvals. These observations are valuable, but they can point us towards the wrong conclusion. Waste is visible, so it receives attention. The conditions that produced it often remain untouched.
When Everything Changes, Learning Becomes Our Greatest Strength
by Vijay Allaham
25 July 2026
By Vijay Allaham, Founder and Managing Director, True North Lean Businesses today are operating in an environment where certainty is becoming increasingly difficult to find. Supply chains are disrupted without warning, customer expectations change quickly, costs continue to rise, and technology is developing faster than
Deming’s 14 Principles: A Management System Built on Quality, Trust and Continuous Improvement
by Surya Narayan
15 July 2026
Many organisations pursue improvement through new technology, ambitious targets, tighter controls or frequent inspections. Dr. W. Edwards Deming challenged this approach. He believed that lasting improvement does not come from isolated tools or pressure on employees. It comes from transforming the entire management system. Deming’s
Indian auto dealers turn to lean methods to cut chaos and win back trust
by Surya Narayan
12 June 2026
Indian vehicle dealerships and service centres are adopting lean management techniques to tackle chronic delays, rework and customer dissatisfaction, aiming to bring factory-style discipline to noisy, overbooked workshops and crowded showrooms. For many dealer principals and service heads, the scene is familiar: bays are full,
How to Draw a Process Flow Diagram Without Overthinking It
by Surya Narayan
27 May 2026
Most teams we work with already know their processes are messy. What they don’t always know is where the mess actually lives. A process flow diagram is one of the simplest ways to find out. You don’t need fancy software, a design background, or a
The Quiet Foundations of Lean: What Modern Manufacturing Still Owes to Juran, Deming, and Drucker
by Surya Narayan
25 May 2026
Walk into almost any modern factory today and you will hear familiar phrases. Lean manufacturing. Continuous improvement. Quality systems. Flow. Productivity. Just-in-Time. Bottom-up problem solving. These ideas are now so deeply embedded in industrial thinking that many assume they were always there. They were not.
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