Hello, reader. Thanks for visiting my Lean Blog! If you'd like to share anything about your background and/or interest in lean, please click on the “Comments” link below. You can post comments here (or to discuss any article) without registering with Blogger.com even.
Here are some reader/listener comments.
From the basic site stats I get from statcounter.com, this site gets visitors from countries including the U.S., the U.K., Columbia, Singapore, France, Australia, and Canada, among others. It's fascinating to see how lean manufacturing is spreading throughout the world!
If you'd like, leave a post answering any or all of the following:
1) Location (city/state/country)
2) Company name / type of company (industry, size, etc.)
3) Your role in lean manufacturing (consultant, manager, engineer, etc.)
4) How long you have been learning lean
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? I hope you are finding this site useful. I'm enjoying putting it together.
Mark
What do you think? Please scroll down (or click) to post a comment. Or please share the post with your thoughts on LinkedIn.
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Location: Phoenix AZ USA
Company: industrial products, large multinational conglomerate
Role: internal lean consultant, working with production teams
Been learning/working with lean for 10 years.
Biggest challenges include:
– management alignment on lean vision and goals
– building management discipline to “get things done” and follow up on standards and improvements
Location: Dallas TX USA
Company: Global provider of stored electrical energy solutions
Role: Lean/Six Sigma leader for NA operations
Time with Lean: 8 years direct
Challenge: Teaching operators to internalize continuous improvement; teaching managers to create a system that makes it easier for operators to do so
Thoughts: Great site with on-target editorial. I’d like to see more comment and discussion from other visitors.
Keep it up!
Anonymous said…
Hello Mark
I am a consultant mostly in Theory of Constraints (TOC). However, Lean is of great interest to me, because it combines perfectly with TOC. I am from Medellin, Colombia. Keep up the good work!
PS – I see there are only two subscribers…have you promoted this Blog in other places to get more? Can I help in any way?
Thanks
Thanks! I knew we had a visitor from Columbia. We’ve only had a few people leave comments, but we have about 25 visitors a day. I know we have a handful of repeat visitors, people who come back at least once a week. One thing I was hoping to do here was to build some lean community on the site.
I’ve promoted the site a bit through some lean email lists I’m a part of, can probably do that again (NWLEAN, APICS, etc.). I’ve also tried to promote this through on-line word of mouth and a few ads that I’ve placed on google.
Please tell your friends and colleagues about the site.
Location: Florida
Company: Electronics Contract Mfg.
Role: Financial Analyst
Learning Lean: Just started
Biggest Challenge: Getting mgmt support for initiative
Feedback/Suggestions: Good articles. Agree with premise need to improve current/future competitiveness of US Mfg. As we outsource innovation, we outsource our competitive edge as a country.
Location: PA
Company: Industrial MFG
Role: Quality
Feedback: try posting some links on the lean.org forums
1) Location: USA
2) Company name / type of company: software provider for lean transformations
3) How long you have been learning lean: 3-4 years
4)Any feedback or suggestions? I’ve just subscribed and hope to get interesting perspectives on real-world lean implementations. Especially interested in mixed model (aka high mix-low volume or HMLV) lean.
1) Location:
Fremont, CA. USA
2) Company name / type of company:
NUMMI, Automotive manufacturer
3) Your role in lean manufacturing:
New Toyota rule, all team members must receive TPS training
4) How long you have been learning lean:
About 8 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
Conveying to others that their jobs are in jeopardy if we do NOT change our focus and process
6) What do you think of this site?
Maybe a little more content. Otherwise, with some reader interaction, this could stir up some great discussion.
Maybe a little more content. Otherwise, with some reader interaction, this could stir up some great discussion.
Thanks for visiting, Robert. Could you elaborate on what you mean by “more content”? I hope you’ll come back and help get the discussions going.
Hi
Location : India
Company/Type of Company: Manufacturing(Non Ferrous Metals)
Functional Role: Head of Planning and Logistics
Been Learning /Practicing Lean : Last 2 yrs
Comments on the site : A fantastic blog, and a source of inspiration.Pls keep this up and going …
Location: Virginia
Company: Fitness Equipment Manufacturer
Hands-on Lean exp: Since last six months
Lean Sucesses: SuperMarket implementation, worker buy-in for assembly cell creation
Challenges: Difficult to motivate people for improvements when they are buzy doing the tactical things
Harry Shah, student at Virginia Tech, Lean Manufacturing Intern at this company
1) Location: Houston, TX
2) Company name / type of company: Medical/Pharmaceutical R&D equipmenent mfg.
3) Your role in lean manufacturing: I’m the Industrial Engineer here so I see can see across departments and seem to be the only one that cares!
4) How long you have been learning lean: Jan 2003. Attended a speech by Tony Barnes, one of Deming’s associates in Japan after WWII. Great speaker really got me fired up.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? Lack of managements interest/understanding. We are a busy shop, why change?
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? I hit it weekly, I look forward to others comments.
And I post my little $0.02 rantings here….
http://manufacturinginamerica.blogspot.com/
1. Company Location: Northern Utah
2. Company Name: TPS – ThroughPut Solutions
3. Your Role in Lean Manufacturing: I run a small Lean consulting firm and love to help people get Lean even off the clock.
4. How long have you been learning Lean?: Just about 10 years now and I’m still learning.
5. What is your biggest implementation challenge?: Just like most of us it’s getting senior management to fully commit and follow through. They tend to be extremely busy and need to delegate more.
6. What do you think of this site?: I really enjoy reading Mark’s and other comments on articles and new Lean ideas.
1) Las Cruces NM USA
2) Fashion-Incubator.com (apparel manufacturing resource site)
3) Proponent, practitioner, writer & consultant
4) Since 1992, before I knew it was called “lean”.
5) Getting people to read and learn about it, to say nothing of trying it. My site stats drop when I write about it and that in spite of the fact that the hottest apparel manufacturer (Zara) in the world is lean!
6) Other than upgrading your site to MT or WP for their robust features, I have no thoughts yet as I’m still digesting and looking for like-minded folks interested in implementing these strategies in small to midsize enterprises.
1) Las Cruces, NM, USA
2) NewTec, contractor
3) manager
4) Lean, per se, about a year. TQM, etc., about a decade
5) Getting supervisors to set aside time from their already hectic schedules to conduct experiments, getting technicians to follow standard procedures or to let others know about their great innovations (very distributed work environment)
6) I enjoy reading it, but no helpful feedback, as yet
1. Company Location – Reynosa, Mexico
2. Company Name – Maytag Mexico
3. Role – Internal LeanSigma consultant
4. How long learning about Lean Lean – 13 years
5. Biggest Implementation Challenge – Getting past passive agressive middle managers
6. This site – Enjoy reading it; sort of a community of practice for me
1) Location – Cedar Rapids, Iowa/New York City
2) Company name – OmniLingua Inc – provides translation and other language services to various industries
3) Role – President of company; also Deming Institute instructor
4) How long you have been learning lean? – focused more on Deming System of profound knowledge (which encapsulates lean principles) since 1998
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? – transition of staff from being “compliant” to being “committed” and “enrolled”
6) What do you think of this site? – I don’t access the site directly much; most access is via blog aggregation tool. Like the articles and pointers towards other great articles.
1) Location (city/state/country)
Oakland, CA, USA
2) Company name / type of company (industry, size, etc.)
Asarum, collaborative clothing, sole proprietorship with no employees
3) Your role in lean manufacturing (consultant, manager, engineer, etc.)
In my dreamlife as the owner of a much larger, lean fashion operation
4) How long you have been learning lean
6 months
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
Since it’s just me so far, I have a hard time objectively evaluating my own practices for waste, and I don’t have a manger to turn to for help. or capital to hire one.
Problems I anticipate once I have a bigger business:
1) fabric. Fabric is frequently defective (gets messed up whe you wash it), and must be purchased in huge lots, so I’ll have to keep inventories.
2) rampant outsourcing and hefty fines and fees for being a contract sewing facility makes them REALLLY cost-conscious, so I anticipate alot of resistance to lean practices that take workers off the line. Plus, a lot of them won’t speak English, so to communicating with the workers may be hard.
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions?
I’d like more explnation of articles you link to & more definitions of buzzwords and acronyms.
Thanks for the reminder of the Dice Game from The Goal. I used it last week in a value stream mapping workshop. It worked perfectly in driving home a key point about the client’s process.
1. Location: Athens, GA, USA
2. Management consulting
3. Lean teacher, facilitator, consultant
4. Over 20 years learning lean
5. Biggest implementation challenge: 8 wastes vs. traditional accounting systems
6. This is a very helpful site for practitioners!!
Hi Mark,
you are doing a great job and in connection with Jim’s website http://www.lean.org there should be lots of new input for getting change to LEAN:-))
1) Leipzig, Germany
2) BMW AG, Plant Leipzig, automotive OEM
3) Processplanner
4) Got hold of “Lean Thinking” at university some 10 years ago and since then I am constantly chasing possibilities to implement “Lean”
5) Implement the Lean idea in a cleary defined work area together with the entire shop floor staff showing that LEAN is worth the effort:-)
6) Excellent site to get new views on LEAN and an easy way to get in contact with lean thinkers:-)
Regards from Leipzig and keep up the good work
Ralf
Mark,
1) Columbus, Ohio – Go Buckeyes
2)Circuit Breaker Assembly
3) Focused Factory Manager
4) Took some courses at a technical college starting in 1997
5) Changing the culture to continuous improvement
6)I don’t get the chance to visit the site as much as I would like, but I always learn something.
PDCA
) Location: Dearborn Michigan
2) Company name / type of company Society of Manufacturing Engineers
3) Your role in lean manufacturing Editor, writer and student. Office and information lean projects
4) How long you have been learning lean: Acquainted with it – 20 years; writing – 5 years; projects – 2 years.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? Murky processes; different processes for similar things; not being able to participate in factory kaizens (invite me, please)
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? I like the survey of visitors – I will have to do it on my blog – leanreflect.blogspot.com. And you always have insightful things to say about lean and business.
Karen
Hi Mark!
1) Chicago, IL USA
2) eMvoy.com (we’re a new search engine specifically for finding US manufacturers) we’re very tiny right now.
3) My role is really just that I’m interested in finding out more about it and promoting it on our site (eventually).
4) n/a
5) n/a
6) So far I’m really enjoying your site. It’s great to be able to casually get information and learn more about the obstacles and accomplishments others are facing in the manufacturing community. Keep up the great work!
1) Location: Toledo, OH
2) Diversified manufacturer of ind. goods
3) Your role in lean manufacturing – Internal consultant
4) How long you have been learning lean- 6 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? To get past the quasi commitment of executives to lean and the misunderstanding of lean vs. cost savings.
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? Great site- It would be wonderful to share more examples about lean practices.
) Location: Brisbane, Australia
2) Company name: non-electric explosives manufacturer
3) Bussines Improvement manager
4) Experiencing lean for 5+ years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? I have done several lean implementation projects from a whole plant tranformation to a couple of work cells or areas, the biggest challenge i face today is motivating the people after a change has happened and reached saturation level.
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? Been looking for something like this site for ages, i think its great.
1) Location: Tegucigalpa, Honduras
2) Company name: undisclosed (it’s a small town after all) …manufacturing company with sales of US$50 mill/year, 3,500+ employees, 6 plants
3) Your role in lean manufacturing: continuous improvement manager
4) How long you have been learning lean: 3 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?: keeping sponsors engaged
6) What do you think of this site?: it ´s about time!
1) Location Bremerton, Washington
2) Company Non-profit Applied Research and Development Company
3) Your role in lean manufacturing Project Manager for Lean Six Sigma Implementation at government facilities
4) How long you have been learning lean All my life. Formally for about 8 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? Convincing Civil Servents that they are empowered to change their workplace for the better.
6) What do you think of this site? This is my first visit. Ask me again later.
1) Location: Atlanta, GA USA
2) Company: Egoli Business Solutions (management consulting – http://www.egoliblog.blogspot.com)
3) Role: Consultant
4) How long you have been learning lean: 15 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
– Getting the ‘good news’ out there.
– Getting the cultural change in organizations necessary to drive value and continuous improvements.
6) What do you think of this site?
Great site. You are right on the money. Keep up the good work.
1) Columbus, Ohio – Go Bucks!
2) Riverside Methodist Hospital (One of the busiest in the country)
3)Process Improvement Specialist
4) 5 years of lean, although previously focused more on Six Sigma
5) Change Management – hospital employees are not factory workers, much harder to change.
6)Very interesting site. Especially enjoyed the scissors “lean” improvement joke.
Mark,
1. Houston, TX
2. Omron
3. Business Analyst
4. I was at i2 for 3 years as a programmer, I suppose that SCM optimization is in its way a LEAN philosophy. I have just been thrown into a full blown LEAN focused company.
5. This is it. But honestly it doesnt look to be that big. For sure there is a lot of work to be done, much to learn and many processes to improve.
6. I stumbled on to your site because I was looking for a nice “kaizen” graphic to use as a desktop background. Something to see first thing every day to get me thinking about Kaizen.
Bolton, UK
NHS and webmaster
‘Student of Lean & Life-long learner’
Great blog – really informative and thought provoking. I have added a link at:
http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/links.htm
listed under – ‘Ideas’.
http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/
Hodges’ Health Career – Care Domains – Model
h2cm: help 2C more – help 2 listen – help 2 care
1. Finland.
2. A design and manufacturing company specializing in rolling stock interior projects.
3. Project Manager with process development and internal ERP consultant duties.
4. Been learning lean for maybe a year; previously I’ve worked in a very decent kaizen environment for six years. I’ve audited both EFQM and 9001 systems for a few years. This seems like a natural extension.
5. Obtaining and maintaining senior management commitment.
6. Just arrived on your site and will be coming back. A very promising beginning, keep up the good work!
1) Location:
Kansas City, MO USA
2) Company name / type of company:
A Division of a Healthcare Company, have also worked for several Fortune 50 Companies (GE, Emerson, Delphi, Sprint, Learjet-Bombardier)
3) Your role in lean manufacturing:
Pretty much the whole spectrum, internal consultant/designer, engineer/supervisor, lean leader, etc to external consultant.
4) How long you have been learning lean: Roughly 10-12 years, nice thing is you never stop
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
Corporate buy-in, Ignorance is # one especially with this huge push for Lean & Six Sigma integration..if you roll out Lean correctly you will very rarely use Six Sigma and then only as a problem solving tool, not as a philosophy.
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? Finally found something refreshing aside from the other sites.
What is the difference between autonomation vs automation?
Some would say at initial blush semantics. Others know that it hinges upon using technology to assist and aide the employee to create more value added activities or time to the process, instead of automation which replaces the employee with a mindless machine.
Example: Instead of building a machine to consistently drop a piece of sub-assy on top of another assy, why not design it to be close? You will still need that resource to do the final placement because of the various factors related to the placement (i.e. line speed, variation in centering holes, variation in material, etc.). Point is, why spend $1 MM to design the perfect machine up front, use technology to assist the worker, eventually over time the “machine” will replace the worker but not until all the bugs have been worked out.
That is my two cents worth….
Location: Fort Wayne, IN
Company Name: SysteMental, Inc.
My Role in Lean: Consultant, Owner of a company specializing in helping executives accomplish their most difficult objectives relative to Lean.
How long learning Lean: Since 1996
Implementation Challenge: Helping Top Management understand how to show their support and comittment.
Feedback or suggestions: The site is a great idea. I am too new to the site to make suggestions. I look forward to visiting often.
1. Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA (Go blue!)
2. Organization: University of Michigan Hospital
3. My role in lean manufacturing: Consultant / engineer
4. How long you have been learning lean: book knowledge for 6 years, 1 year of practice
5. What is your biggest implementation challenge?
-Change management
-Helping people see how lean tools fit with CQI tools they’ve been using
-Helping groups learn how to continue improving without direct support from a ‘coach’
6. What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions?
-I enjoy the site and find the postings very interesting and helpful.
1. Location: Sindelfingen, Germany
2. Organization: Software Development (!)
3. My Role: Besides my development tasks I’m acting as a coach for agile and lean software development methodologies
4. We are now experiencing lean methodologies for 3 years. I started reading books and articles on TPS mid of this year.
5. We are actually far away to be called lean. It’s challenging, frustrating and exciting to introduce lean ideas into an organization which is inert and mostly not willing to change minds though it propagates to follow agile and lean ideas. It’s hard to proceed when resistance sustains.
6. Not sure what I should think about the site. I have to visit it regularily and then I will assess it …
I made my post here just to show that lean thinking also ‘penetrates’ non-production areas. Software development has a huge potential for lean ideas …
Regards Andreas Gut
1) Location (city/state/country) London UK
2) Company name / type of company (industry, size, etc.) National Health Service, 1.3 million employee’s give or take
3) Your role in lean manufacturing (consultant, manager, engineer, etc.) Improvement Consultant specialising in Lean / TPS / 6 Sigma, I joined the health service after 10 years in the US and UK working in manufacturing and completing my Post Grad at Cranfield University
4) How long you have been learning lean – 13 years give or take
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? Whole Organisation Turnaround – 2-4000 staff, 400m in revenue, very large projects engaging large numbers of managerial and clinical stakeholders
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? I hope you are finding this site using. I’m enjoying putting it together. Just started, but like what I see.
Location: Minnesota USA
Industry: Semiconductor industry
Role: Corporate Lean Facilitator
Yrs. experience: 3 year Lean journey
Challenges: Teaching management and operators that Lean is a team effort and takes steadfast dedication from all involved or things will fail.
This site: I Think the site is a great forum to express thoughts and ideas around the topic of Lean. The site also provides a useful tool to learn new practices and to express success and failures within your own Lean journey.
1) Location: Jefferson, Oregon USA
2) Company name / type of company: Design and assembly of windshield wiper systems; other applications for electric DC motors.
3) Your role in lean manufacturing: Human Resources (and therefore training on Lean)
4) How long you have been learning lean: Under one year.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? Me! (Just learning)Also, I struggle with management giving “lip service” in meetings and passing great teaching moments by completely on the floor.
6) What do you think of this site? It is great! I just discovered the podcasts. Any feedback or suggestions? Keep going for at least 50 years. I hear that is how long it is going to take to change the culture here at work. :)
Midwest manufacturer of physical and electronic security equipment.
3 year old company now.
Serve as R&D Engineer mostly it seems, and also President and COO
Began as an employee of Honda. Since then have learned through implementation and study as a student at MIT’s LFM program.
Biggest implemetation challenge is maintaining, in the words of Deming, a “constancy of purpose”,
in the face of changing demands and
distractions.
Terrific Site…….
1) Location: SAN DIEGO, JAPAN AND BRAZIL
2) Company name: HONSHA.ORG – AN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF TOYOTA MANAGERS AND ENGINEERS
3) Your role in lean manufacturing: TPS/LEAN COACH
4) How long you have been learning lean: 13 YEARS IN TOYOTA CITY, JAPAN. TOYOTA BRAZIL, VENEZUELA AND KENTUCKY.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge: CULTURAL BARRIERS. FINANCIAL AND R&d STAFF.
6) What do you think of this site? THIS SITE IS REALLY INTERESTING.
1) Location: Canby, OR
2) Company Name: MEC Northwest
3) Role in lean mfg: Mfg Manager
4) How long have been practicing lean: 3 years
5) Biggest implementation challenge: Creating a lean Culture
6)What I think of this site: A lot of good information. It has been interesting reading the posted info on this site
Location: Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Type of company: Hospital
My role: Director of Lean Improvements
How long?: About 5 years
Biggest challenge(s): Learning the culture of the organization (I’m new to health care) and adapting the Lean tools
The site: I think the site is great – a way to share thoughts, swap stories, and keep abreast of recent developments. It’s now on my daily “web surfing” list.
Location – New London, CT
Role – Consultant
How long – 15 years
What is your biggest implementation challenge – Wall Street and the nearsighted quarterly EPS focus it creates.
This site – A welcome R&R (Recharge and Refocus) stop on the Lean journey
Location: China (I’m Swedish though)
Type of company: Switchgears
My role: Production Engineer
Biggest challenge(s): To introduce lean thinking to the Chinese.
The site: I would appreciate some more info on lean in China.
Location: India
Type of Company: Software
Role: Communications
Biggest Challenge: Trying to the get the idea across that systems and processes are largely responsible for results
The Site: Great stuff
Location: Toronto,Canada
Type of company: Automobile
I am Industrial engineer from India,but in canada i am looking for professional job.I am intrested in lean and i want to do certificate course in Lean Manufacturing . Can you advise me about it?
Location: Louisiana, USA
Company: Cell Phone Towers and Structures
Industrial Engineer and Grad Student
Think the Lean Blog site is great.
Industrial Engineering students would gretly benefit from visiting this site often to get an idea of how lean effects working industrial engineering professionals in their everday lives and keep abreast of new developments.
1) Location – Vermont, USA
2) Company name / type of company – Consumer goods
3) Your role in lean manufacturing – internal consultant
4) How long you have been learning lean – 7 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? – Getting managers to lead by thinking lean.
6) What do you think of this site? Great website.
1) Location – Appleton, WI USA
2) Company name / type of company – Integrated Health System
3) Your role in lean manufacturing – internal lean facilitator
4) How long you have been learning lean – 3 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? – Creating a lean culture.
6) What do you think of this site? A lot of good information. I also enjoy the podcasts.
Location: Missouri
Conpany: Poultry
Role: Lean Coordinator
Experience: 1 1/2 yeas
Biggest Implementation Challange: Continusly coming up with motiviational material to encourage and Motivate Managers. They are all on the mindset of turning Lean, but when things hit the fan, everyone gets on the firefighting mode. Being a company that has several years on their Lean Journey, a lot of times, we fail to support our Lean leaders and focus on nothing other than production.
Location: Sussex, United Kingdom
Company: Time 24 Ltd. Manufacturing and integration of electrical and electronic systems. Approximately 300 employees over four sites.
Role: Lean Facilitator and 5S Co-ordinator
Time learning Lean: Three months and counting.
Biggest implementation challenge: For me, I feel the biggest challenge is the “We’ve done Lean before and it didn’t work!” attitude.
Thoughts on Lean Blog: I think the site is fantastic and the podcasts are very informative. Lean Blog has inspired me to start my own “Lean Journey” blog. I look forward to referencing this site in the very near future!
Thank you, Lean Blog!
Location: Prudence Island, RI USA
Company: regional industrial trades tabloid newspaper
Role: editorial and production
Biggest challenges include:
Keeping the readership informed about trends in manufacturing and finding resources to help them learn about and apply proven strategies to their own operations.
For years I’ve been running articles about the benefits of lean, listing lean classes and workshops in our events calendar and trawling the MEP sites for usful information. This blog brings the topic of lean to life in a unique and entertaining way. I intend to recommend it to our readers in our upcoming issue, because it makes you *want* to learn more about lean. Thank you for creating leanblog.org!
1) Keller, TX, USA
2) $3B industrial equipment company
3) Corporate MBB deploying Lean and Six Sigma
4) LSS for about 12 years
5) Normal stuff… knuckle heads
6) Rock on Mark!
1) Newport, RI, USA
2) U.S. Navy Lab
3) Mechanical Engineer
4) 3 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? – Getting everyone, from management down to the line engineer to see the value and applicability of Lean Manufacturing ideas to their work. I think I “get it,” but it will take the leadership of management to pull everyone else into Lean practices.
6) I read this site every day through Google Reader. Good move in changing to the leanblog.org site, as blogspot is blocked at my lab.
It’s great blog. Really help & support my activities.
Now i have been in 3 years working with TPM – Total Productive Management.
I am waiting for next podcast discussing about Toyota Talent.
Bima
TPM Education & Training Pillar Leader
Certified Six Sigma Black Belt
Multi Bintang Indonesia Tbk.
Heineken Group of Companies
Sheffield/South Yorkshire/United Kingdom
The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing/Aerospace manufacturing, 60+ employees; We primarily work in the machining of titanium, nickel and inconel. We have reduced machining times more than 80% on titanium components.
Biggest implementation challenge: Industrial psychology – Convincing companies to adopt a new technique that is better than thier current method is very difficult.
1) Location:
Ann Arbor, Michigan / Taipei, Taiwan
2) Company name / type of company:
University of Michigan / Consumer goods
3) Your role in lean manufacturing:
Student / Business process re-engineering
4) How long you have been learning lean: 2 years.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
Convincing people to buy-in to projects, getting the ‘real’ process from interviewing people when shadowing is not feasible.
6) What do you think of this site?
Great!
1) Location:
Monroe, Michigan
2) Company name / type of company:
Mainstream GS LLC / Consulting – Organizational Transformation via a Lean platform.
3) Your role in lean manufacturing:
Continuous Process Improvement Master Consultant
4) How long you have been learning lean:
20 years.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
a. The comprehension and adaptation to Value Stream
b. Organizational Learning – Engagement at all levels (middle mgrs are frequently more of a struggle than top level mgrs).
c. Lean advocates/practitioners who know just enough to be dangerous. Gotta love the enthusiasm, energy, and action; but patience, observation, and understanding have to blend in.
d. Properly scoping the desired end state and incorporating a strategy of implementation.
e. Inadequate commitment to infrastructure supporting sustainment of the advances made during implementation.
6) What do you think of this site?
I appreciate what you are doing. Your post on going to GEMBA fits here because I consider blogging like going to GEMBA in the Lean industry. I agree with one of your readers (2005) about getting conversations going.
You can note my support for discussions in an entry I made on your “Error Proffing Challenge” post a few days ago as your first anonymous commentor and dwr@msgs.
Since the discussion stopped when I challenged some of the talk there I may have scared everyone away with the thought of a ittle bit of analysis, or they were turned off by my style, or that topic had run it’s course, or d) all of the above.
In Lean, we all need a Sensei and we all need to be willing to learn and see ourselves as part of a bigger picture.
Just like the environments we “Lean”, we never really arrive.
Keep up the nice work!
Great blog, Mark, thanks for your comment on my blog. And great turnout on this survey, eh!
1. Richmond, VA, USA
2. Virginia Commonwealth University is a university of 30,000 students and John Tyler Community College is a community college about 20 miles south of Richmond.
3. Student, observer, intern (soon, hopefully), eventually entrepreneur and/or consultant
4. Just a few months…I started reading a biography of Fredrick W. Taylor this spring, so I’ve gone from there.
5. Not applicable (yet).
6. I’m into it but I’m not yet a frequent enough reader to have a strong opinion. The best part is being able to keep up on how news events affect or are affected by the Lean perspective
1) Location (city/state/country) – Aberdeen, SD, USA.
2) Company name / type of company (industry, size, etc.) – Hub City, Inc., Div of Regal-Beloit, Corp. Mechanical Drive Systems, 350 facility (10,000+ Corporate).
3) Your role in lean manufacturing (consultant, manager, engineer, etc.) – Lean Facilitator (Internal Consultant to various plants).
4) How long you have been learning lean – Since 2001 specifically, Cellular Manufacturing & Problem Solving since 1998.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? – Overcoming fears and traditional beliefs at all levels.
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? – As always, excellent work Mark. Been viewing/posting on the site for around 1 year, figured it was about time to complete the “Who is visiting” page!
Location: Cincinnati, OH
Company: Lareg diversified multinational conglomerate
Role: Continuous Improvement/
Quality Engineer
Six Sigma Black Belt with 3 yrs of experience in process improvement.
Biggest challenges include:
– Leading culture change
– Driving Six Sigma Projects in traditional manufacturing mindset
– Managing teams without having direct authority over them
Location: Florida
Company: Medical device manufacturer
Role: Manufacturing Supervisor
Biggest challenges include:
Culture change
Culture change
Culture change
and
Culture change
Hi Mark,
I applaud your blog and your efforts in promoting Lean. My profile is very similar to yours, amd I am also based in the Phoenix area. My focus in terms of Lean implementation has been in the area of product development. Based on my work, I have authored two books on the subject. My most recent, entitled Accelerated Product Development, published by Productivity Press, outlines an approach of combining Lean and Six Sigma to achieve the goals of reducing product development cycle time, cost, and quality defects. I welcome everyone to critique this material and share thoughts related to the expansion of Lean implementation beyond factory walls.
Cliff – thanks for saying hi. My original comment is out of date, I now live in the DFW area. I’ll have to try to check out your book sometime, but I don’t work in the product dev space. Maybe one of my blog readers can do a review for us.
Location: Racine / Milwaukee, WI USA
Company: Non-Profit Social Service & Consumer Goods Manufacturer
Role: Manager of Manufacturing Portion of Department
Learned about lean through business classes. Not much hands on experience.
Biggest Challenges: Lack of Resources, Aversion to Change, Company Culture, etc.
1) Reggio Emilia /Italy
2) Caterpillar
3) Buyer
4) Just Started :-)
Nice Blog
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Company: coal mining
Role: Owner
New to lean, but not new to Six Sigma
Challenge: restoring innovation to American industry.
Thoughts: No more PowerPoint presentations; no more IT boondoggle projects; no more leveraging, core competencies, hundred thousand foot views, takeaways and other consultantspeak. Interested only in getting back onto the linoleum to make something.
1 – Durham, NC, USA
2 – Burt’s Bees World Headquarters,
Maker of the finest natural personal care products on the planet
3 – CI and IE Manager, Sensei to EVP
4 – I have over 12 years in lean
5 – Biggest challenge: operations management that haven’t lived through a transformation…we could move much faster :(
6 – I love the site…keep the podcasts coming…thanks to Deborah Porto for telling me it was here. :>
If you want to consider a career in natural personal care, JSchmitzer@burtsbees.com.
Have an awesome 2008!
1) Lodi / CA / USA
2) Kyoho Mfg California / Tier 1 NUMMI supplier
3) Group Leader / TPS KÅhai
4) 3 years
5) Workforce buy-in
6) Just found the site.
-bZj
1 – Portland, OR, USA
2 – I’m an ultra-low key recruiter who specializes in the IT & LEAN sectors. Surprise – it’s a great time to be involved as an expert in either arena.
3 – As a recruiter, I work with regional/national clients when they need to hire IT or Lean experts.
4 – I’ve been learning “learning about” lean in fit’s and spurt’s for 3 years now as a recruiter. I wish the vulcan mind-meld were possible, then I’d have a chance at retaining more.
5 – I find this site insightful and exhaustively interesting. Kudo’s. . .
1) Location: Dombühl, Germany
2) Company: Clopay Plastics
3) Role: Plant Manager
4) How long you have been learning lean: 1.5 years
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
-balancing what the organization is capable of doing and digesting and not overloading the organization. Priorities.
6) What do you think of this site?
I started listening to the podcasts before this site, and after a number of them decided to look up the site. It is now on my links ribbon, and gets checked daily now.
1)Location: Auckland, New Zealand
2)Company: Productivity Solutions Limited
3)Role: Principal Consultant
4)Experience: Manufacturing and Supply Chain all rounder – have implemented a number of productivity improvement projects both in Manufacturing and Supply Chain.
Associate of CMI Consortium of ITO’s (Industry Training Organisations) in NZ
Member of: Auckland Chamber of Commerce, NZ Production & Inventory Control Society, Employers and Manufacturers Association
5)Biggest Challenge: Convincing the senior management of businesses that they need to implement lean to be competitive locally and globally
6)Biggest Achievemnet – Doubled the productivity in less than 4 weeks in a fabrication busness using continuous flow concept
7)Services we offer: Lean Manufacturing, Lean Supply Chain & Distribution, Lean Office, Lean Healthcare and Business Integration Solutions
8)This site is great to share knowledge
Alabama
LEAN Greenbelt for a global bioscience corp.
Involved for 2 years and will be forever
Biggest Challenge: Providing culture change to create a continuous improvement environment.
Biggest Upside: LEAN makes sense to everyone.
1) Location: Saitama Ken, Japan.
2) Company- Semiconductor, LCD manufacturing
3) Role- Internal lean consultant
4) Been learning/working with lean for 3 years.
5) Biggest challenge: getting the president, who hired me to learn and practice lean.
6) Thoughts: Great Blog, very informative. Do visit Japan sometime. its a great learning experience.
Location: Bangalore, India
Role : Lean software consultant
Discovered lean via agile and lean software development
Biggest challenge: badly need some exposure in a lean software development environment
Thoughts: Lean was a lifechanging discovery for me, and I want to evangelize and use lean in all aspects of life, it fits well with my 80-20 philosophy as well
Location: Perth , Western Australia
Company : Bartter Enterprises
Role: LSS Black Belt,Develop CI into processes.
How long: 3 years 6S Green Belt and 6 months LSS Black Belt.
Biggest Challenge: Changing Workplace Culture
I think this Site is a great resource and library of experience , initiatives and best practice sharing.
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
Company: Karlsberger Healthcare Consulting / hospital planners and lean consultants
Been working with lean for 3 years.
Biggest challenge:
In addition to shorter term operational improvement projects, my company specializes in the pre-design services related to planning and construction of new hospitals. The biggest challenge for us is assisting clients with the ability to envision major changes that not only will take place in their current environment, but imagining an unfamiliar process is a yet-to-realized built environment.
I am a former hospital administrator turned consultant and love every minute of my job.
Your site is a great place to see what others are doing and especially, what everyone is struggling with.
Juliet L. Rogers, PhD, MPH
Karlsberger Healthcare Consulting
jrogers@karlsberger.com
1) Germany
2) lean consulting, 25 employees
3) lean consultant
4) since 4 years on “my lean journey”
Columbus, Ohio
Anshen+Allen, architects, +350
Internal and external implementation research,
Great site and link resources.
thanks.
1) Location: Scotland., U.K.
2) Company- Contract Manufacturer
3) Role- Test Engineer
4) Been learning/working with lean for 2 years.
5) Biggest challenge: Keeping up the momentum, very easy to slip back into old ways when under pressure.
6) Thoughts: Task of implementing Lean is never done, complete (like housework). This is probably the most important concept to learn (i.e. Continuous Improvement).
Westfield, MA
Fiber Optic Manufacturer
Lean Leader
more than 10 years
The challenge is teaching people to "see" the waste right in front of them.
I have been a long time follower.
Check out my blog – A lean Journey
http://www.leanjourneytruenorth.blogspot.com
Tim McMahon
Walton Kentucky
Automotive seating components and subassemblies
Manufacturing Engineer
1 year.
1) company has pushed toward lean however the philosophy is not understood to be embraced effectively which causes more problems (e.g., radical inventory reductions without pulling suppliers in to plans)
After almost four years since my first comment an update is due to come
1) Location: Dresden/Germany
2) Company name / type of company (industry, size, etc.): 1-person Process Consultation ChancenWandler & LockSchuppen (Futurelab2056 – PeerAcademy – CoWorking), a new CoWorking space providing space for appr. 100 entrepreneurs physicially and more in a virtual coworking environment
3) Your role in lean manufacturing (consultant, manager, engineer, etc.): In-System "consultant" & Systems designer
4) How long you have been learning lean: my personal lean journey started 35 years back (my father running a repair-shop in basement pretty much on 5S and visual control – sometimes really pissed my, has he instantly knew where something was missinfg;-)), got deeper after falling of the wall and my travels to Eastern-Germany, where I realized that these people where rREAL Lean Thinkers:-) 1997 I found "Lean Thinking" in the library of HTW Dresden / University for Applied sciences Dresden, in 2003 joined BMW on its journey to build up the new Leipzig plant in lean manner
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge? Making people aware of current "unlean" and undesirable situation and move on to change (sustainable one!)
6) What do you think of this site? Any feedback or suggestions? I hope you are finding this site useful. I stillenjoy reading and after meeting Mark just this week in Boston and at LEI, it is time to come back (was more involved in http://solevolution.ning.com and http://community.presencing.com in recent time).
So looking forward to further drive for make LEAN available for broader public.
Cheers, Ralf
Hi Mark,
I ´m from Sao Jose dos Campos, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
I ´m a physician leading a medical group focused in oncology with circa 130 employees.
I ´ve been working with lean for almost 3 years. I got my Green Belt early 2009 and still working on my Black Belt; "Lean Hospitals" is the backbone of our learning process.
My biggest implementation challenge is to disseminate lean thinking in my organization (and we ´re doing it by training new Yellow/Green Belts) with multiple VSMs going on.
There is virtually nothing published in portuguese about Lean in Healthcare. The blog is a valuable tool to get access to these initiatives.
Carlos — please email me, would love to discuss Lean with you.
Can go to http://www.markgraban.com and use the contact form there.
Mark
Knoxville,TN
Lean Consultant
Lean Leader & Lean Products Store
more than 12 years
I have been a long time follower.
Check out my site:
http://www.5sleanmanufacturing.com
Curtis Lane
Location: Queretaro/Queretaro/Mexico
Company name / type of company (industry, size, etc.): ITR / Aerospace (+500 employees)
Role: Manufacturing Manager
How long you have been learning lean: 4 years
I find this an interesting website. Keep sharing examples!
HI, Just found your blog..
Impressed with the quality of your postings. Much to digest over the coming months that I will take to read it!!
Sat out implementing lean in the middle east in various manufacturing and construction companies. With nothing to do here in the evenings and weekends in saudi I have started my own blog, if you have the chance visit and give any pointers..
How to implement lean manufacturing
.-= Tony ´s last blog ..How to implement Lean Manufacturing =-.
1) Location: Katowice, Poland
2) Company- Automotive ,+1000 employees
3) Role- Internal lean consultant
4) Been learning/working with lean for 4years.
5) Biggest challenge: Getting the cultural change in organizations necessary to drive value andcontinuous improvements
.-= mmllmm ´s last blog ..Kodeks Lean Manufacturing – Pareto Diagram – PDCA – Pull Flow =-.
Hi,
Good site, like to follow what else is going on out there in the real world as currently working in the construction industry in Saudi Arabia, hardly lean!!!!
Feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall here, the locals don’t want to work and the imported labour is so P1$$ed at the locals that they don’t want to help in any way…
Been implementing lean since the 1980’s in one way or another, started life in the automotive industry supplying everyone from ford, GM, Volvo and of course Toyota.. Have had the privalege of being able to run projects with some of the big automotive companies as well as the companies that I worked for.
With the demise of most of the automotive industry in the UK I moved into consultancy through a couple of major well known Universities and continued my lean implementations before moving out here to Saudi for the money…
Check out my own Blog if you would like, trying to find something to do in the evenings here…
how to implement lean manufacturing
Looking forward to any constructive feedback anyone wishes to leave on my blog
.-= Tony ´s last blog ..Going to the Gemba =-.
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Company: Vergence Analytics
1) Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2) Company: Vergence Analytics – Consulting
3) Role in lean manufacturing: Consultant
4) Learning Lean: 20+ years and Growing
5) The greatest challenge is sustaining the lean mindset to become an intrinsic part of the company culture.
6) Great site! I didn’t see this in your Resources page so I’m recommending it here: Steven Spear’s “Chasing the Rabbit” which was re-released under a new title “The High Velocity Edge”. It is a book that is definitely worth reading. It spans multiple industries and disciplines (including the medical field) and provides some great insights regardless of background.
1) Location: Ventura, California
2) Company- Non-profit
3) Role- Founder
4) Been learning/working with lean for 4years.
5) Biggest challenge: Getting the cultural change in organizations standardized.
1) Location: Denmark, Europe
2) Company: Lean Consultant
3) Role: Founder and consultant
4) How long you have been learning lean: Approx 10 years.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge: To make the companies listen more to their organisation when they define lean in order for the organisation to take ownership.
6) What do you think of this site? Great site. Many useful articles and discussions.
Location: St George Utah
Company: Manufacturing U DXATC
Role: Program Adimistrator
How long: since 1987
Biggest Challange: Incorporating new and exciting information into cirriculum…
I think this is a very informative site. I truly love the menu bar at the bottom. Could you put me in contact with the person that helped you put it there? I would love to add it to my future blog.
1) Location: Gliwice, Poland
2) Company- Automotive ,+500 employees
3) Role- Internal lean consultant
4) Been learning/working with lean for 4years.
5) Biggest challenge: Getting the cultural change in organizations necessary to drive value and continuous improvements
1) Location: Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2) Company: HAN University, University of Applied Science
3) Role: Student in Automotive Engineering
4) Been learning and researching lean for about 2 years.
5) What is your biggest implementation challenge?
Trying to figure out how automotive service could benefit from the philosophy.
6) Feedback: Keep up the good work. The podcast are a great resource. Listen them during commute. They help me with understanding the philosophy and being able to philosophize.