Lean Human Performance Improvement

As companies continue their efforts to improve work performance, they must ensure that their ongoing Lean activities include a healthy appreciation for, and recognition of, human performance. Ignoring the human component of work performance can be a recipe for unnecessary waste, inefficiency, and decreased productivity. Lean Human Performance Improvement presents a broad overview of human performance in the workplace. The author discusses his findings from a broad spectrum of human performance-related fields and diverse industrial sectors (gained by working in the field for over 30 years).

Organized in three sections, this book covers understanding human performance, analyzing and improving work productivity, and analyzing and improving quality and safety. The author first develops a fundamental and basic understanding of human performance, then couples that understanding with learning how to analyze and improve human-related work productivity and quality and safety. He also discusses how knowledge and skills transfer from one work setting to another.

Intended for Lean Six Sigma team members and human performance improvement practitioners, the book contains multiple examples from diverse work settings to explain key points. It also includes several major case studies. The goal of all examples and case studies is to develop a generic understanding that, in turn, can be successfully applied to any work setting.

Jerry Harbour, PhD, has over three decades of technical and managerial experience in highly varied operational and research settings, including offshore oil exploration and production, underground mining, nuclear weapons maintenance and dismantlement, unmanned vehicle (air and ground) technology development, hazardous materials handling and processing, and physical security. He has managed various industry and national laboratory organizational functions, including industrial engineering, performance engineering, human factors engineering, robotic and human systems engineering, security systems engineering, applied technology development, and training and development.

Dr. Harbour is the author of numerous technical journal articles and six previous books: The Performance Mapping and Measurement Handbook, Performance Measurement Systems, The Performance Paradox, The Basics of Performance Measurement (now in its second edition), Cycle Time Reduction, and The Process Reengineering Workbook. He holds a PhD in applied behavioral studies and a BA/MS in geology. He resides in southern Colorado on a mountain ranch with his wife.