Chapter 6: Rethinking Lean: Combining Lean and SEAM for Improved Profitability and Support of Cultures of Continuous Improvement in Organizations

I’ve been anticipating this conference for months. As I was writing my paper, I would practice what I would say when this day finally arrived. One of the topics that I’m interested in and one of the things about SEAM that attracted me when I first encountered it in one of the classes here at the University of St. Thomas, was it seemed like it was a missing piece. To me, when I read about value, value creation processes in organizations, creation of wealth, value-added activities, and the organization of work and dysfunction in organizations, I thought maybe SEAM holds some answers. One of the things that I had noticed in my work, I’m in manufacturing so I actually work on a manufacturing floor, is the failure of Lean implementations.