Mark Graban
Mark Graban
Mark Graban is the author of the Shingo award-winning book Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction, and founder of LeanBlog.org. He currently advises healthcare organizations on lean healthcare through his firm, Constancy, Inc. and is currently the Chief Improvement Officer for KaiNexus.
Previously, Mark worked as a consultant for numerous healthcare organizations across North America and in the United Kingdom and later served as a senior fellow at the Lean Enterprise Institute. He taught and led teams of hospital personnel across multi-month lean transformation engagements in departments including laboratory, radiology, primary care, and nursing settings. Working with managers and senior leaders, these hospitals developed a track record of sustaining their lean improvements and also instilling a culture of continuous improvement and kaizen.
Academic qualifications:
B.S. in Industrial Engineering, Northwestern University
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and
M.B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Leaders for Global Operations Program.
Gregory A. Howell, P.E., M.S.C.E.
Gregory A. Howell is co-founder and managing director of the Lean Construction Institute (LCI), a non-profit organization devoted to production management research in design and construction. Howell brings 35 years of construction industry project management, consulting and university-level teaching experience to LCI.
Prior to his appointment as the Associated General Contractors' Visiting Professor in Construction Management at the University of New Mexico in 1987, Howell worked as a project engineer on heavy construction and general building projects and headed his own construction consulting firm for ten years. At UNM, Howell was honored with the College of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award. In 1994 the Associated General Contractors of America recognized him as its Outstanding Educator. He served as Eminent Scholar at the Del E. Webb School of Construction in 1996, and in 1997, Howell left UNM to co-found LCI.
A popular speaker, educator and author Howell regularly addresses industry groups on the need for a lean production revolution in design and construction. His expertise in improving productivity has resulted in consulting engagements on power plants, petro-chemical facilities, commercial and industrial buildings, and infrastructure projects in North and South America and Africa. Howell has taught in construction management executive programs in numerous U.S. universities, including his alma matter Stanford, and in South Africa. He co-authored Productivity Improvement in Construction with Clark Oglesby and Henry Parker, published by McGraw-Hill. The Lean Gulf Institute has been granted rights to translate Productivity Improvement in Construction into Modern Arabic and hopes to have the Arabic version available in early 2012. As Greg speaks and teachs around the world, focusing his message on performance gains generated from adapting lean principles, concepts and techniques to the construction project setting, expect to see him sharing his wealth of knowledge in the Gulf in the near future...
Mark Graban
Mark Graban is a consultant, author, keynote speaker, and blogger in the world of “Lean Healthcare.” In June 2011, Mark joined the software company KaiNexus as their “Chief Improvement Officer,” to help further their mission of “making improvement easier” in healthcare organizations, while continuing his other consulting and speaking activities.
He is the author of the book Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction (Productivity Press), which was selected for a 2009 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award and is being translated into seven languages. A 2nd revised edition will be available in October, 2011. Mark is also currently co-authoring a new book, titled “Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements,” due out in early 2012. He is the founder and lead blogger and podcaster at LeanBlog.org, started in January 2005.
Mark is an experienced consultant and change agent, with a background in Industrial and Mechanical Engineering, with an MBA from MIT Sloan Leaders for Global Operations Program (previously known as Leaders for Manufacturing). Mark has worked in automotive (General Motors), the PC industry (Dell), and industrial products (Honeywell). At Honeywell, Mark was certified as a “Lean Expert” (Lean Black Belt).
Since August 2005, Mark has worked exclusively in healthcare, where he has coached lean teams at client sites in North America and the United Kingdom, including medical laboratories, hospitals, and primary care clinics. Mark’s motivation is to apply Lean and Toyota Production System principles to improve quality of care and patient safety, to improve the customer/patient experience, to help the development of medical professionals and employees, and to help build strong organizations for the long term.
From June 2009 to June 2011, Mark was a Senior Fellow with the Lean Enterprise Institute, a not-for-profit educational organization that is a leading voice in the Lean world. Mark served as the LEI’s “Chief Engineer” for healthcare activities, including workshops, web & social media, and other publications. Mark also served as the Director of Communication & Technology for the Healthcare Value Network, a collaboration of healthcare organizations from across North America, a partnership between LEI and the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value. Mark continues as an LEI faculty member.
Mark is a popular speaker at conferences and private healthcare meetings. He has guest lectured at schools including MIT and Wharton and has served as a faculty member for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. He has been quoted and interviewed in many publications, including Health Affairs and the New York Times.
Academic qualifications:
B.S. in Industrial Engineering, Northwestern University
M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and
M.B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Leaders for Global Operations Program.
