Which Albatross Needs Dumping?
WSJ.com – Lesser Than the Sum of Its Parts . . . The linked column requires a paid WSJ subscription, but I’ll try to summarize. The piece bemoans high labor costs as the things that are sinking Delphi and possibly…
Month April 2006
Some Positive Lean Tales
So here’s a palate cleanser after talking about GM and the failed “lean” efforts that led to a strike at Conn-Selmer (see below). Here are two positive stories that prove lean doesn’t lean to unhappy workers and strikes. One is…
Not Tooting This Horn
Here is a sad article about a strike at a factory in Indiana that makes trumpets and trombones. It’s the UAW, yes that UAW! No, not car horns, brass horns. OK, enough bad boneheaded puns. It’s a fairly one-sided story…
60 Minutes: So will GM be "braindead?"
GM’s Difficult Road Ahead – CBS News: Tonight on 60 Minutes, nothing really new…. GM blames labor costs, the reporter blames the lack of a national healthcare plan. They all have their own agendas, none of it seems based around…
Toyota to Introduce Hybrid Tech to Lineup
Article Toyota plans on rolling out hybrid tech across all of their product lines by 2012. Now I can probably be accused of being a Toyota cheerleader, everything they do is great, etc. I have pointed out before, though, that…
A Non-Lean Suggestion System
Thinking of employee suggestions, I had a flashback this week. Back when I worked at General Motors, we had a typical non-lean suggestion system. People could fill out a form with the idea, in triplicate, keep the green copy, something…
Lean Tools vs. Culture
IndustryWeek : Lean: Closing the Reality Gap Here is an article with a link to an upcoming Industry Week webcast (there will be software vendors on the call, you’ve been warned). One focus of the webcast is supposed to be…
