Month July 2007

Art Smalley Webcast July 18th

IndustryWeek — Prerequisites for Lean Success: Learning From Toyota Event Registration This should be an excellent webcast, featuring Art Smalley. I’ll be registering for this, even if I can’t watch it live that day. People often want to rush into…

McKinsey Lean Consulting Job Posted

Over on the leanboard.org site, click here for the specific job posting or here for the general job board. This is a free service for all parties. The first part of the description: Deep Lean Specialist As client demand in…

The 3 Forms of Any Process

I was going back through my notes from the First Global Lean Healthcare Summit and thankful for the many wonderful thoughts and tidbits that I learned or re-learned. One was a nice way of summarizing the different forms of a…

John Shook TWI Presentation

Presentation Link from TWI Summit Thanks to Blog reader Jeff for sending this along. Jeff sends glowing reports about the first ever TWI Summit that he was able to attend recently. The Shook presentation material is outstanding. I had a…

For those who DID see Sicko…

What are your thoughts? I wrote last week about my thoughts and hopes for the movie “SiCKO”. I’ve actually seen the film now. I won’t go into the details of how I managed to see it without any money flowing…

Fatal Lack of Error Proofing

Safety rules not followed on ride that killed worker | Chicago Tribune A safety precaution put in place for a thrill ride after a fatal accident three years ago wasn’t being followed when a worker was killed on the same…

Resolved: Tis Better to be in the Gemba

There were a couple of articles in the WSJ this past week that, in an indirect way, talk about the value of being at the “gemba” as a manager (gemba is a Japanese word that means “the actual place” where…

A Kaizen Event Story

By Jean Cunningham: Just a quick story of a kaizen event….this one was in a service company. They wanted to improve cash flow by getting receivable more quickly. By mapping the current process with a few of the sales people,…

Recent Factory Examples in the News

Let’s kick off July with some stories about Lean, stories that seem positive on the surface, at least. Be sure to read down to the final story, the textile maker, I think that’s my favorite of the three. Hamilton Sundstrand…