Marketplace: Supplier gets dwindling sums for its parts This story has been in the blog backlog, but it’s always an important topic, the idea of not just squeezing your suppliers on price. It’s not a good idea to just demand…
Article – New York Times Here’s a really interesting article that talks about our attitudes about mistakes. In the Toyota mindset, mistakes are something to learn from (and to prevent from reoccurring), an idea that can be traced all the…
Wall Street’s cushy exile – November 26, 2007… if you’re a top executive. Same thing is proving true in the investment banking world, even after the mortgage mess. The grand strategic decision to not verify borrowers’ incomes, for one, has…
My wife is an Arizona State alumna, so we’re watching the annual Arizona St / Arizona rivalry football game (well, I’m watching it, she just cares if ASU wins… sort of). The sideline announcer just told a quick story about…
Six Sigma and Lean Talent Demand: Finally Reaching Parity A press release says that demand for Lean skills and experience has risen: Based on its third annual sampling of Internet job postings, The Avery Point Group found that Six Sigma…
If you’ve been following any of the posts about healthcare, here are a few interesting follow ups. Following up on this post about Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, CEO Paul Levy posted many interesting employee responses to his email…
Roger Smith, Former G.M. Chief, Dies – New York Times Roger Smith passed away at age 82. While he was demonized by Michael Moore and he’s been criticized here for his “lights out factory” vision, Roger Smith tried many innovative…
C.E.O. Evolution Phase 3 – New York Times In this quote: Mr. [X] “is disarmingly unpretentious,” he added. “…he towers over other C.E.O.’s when it comes to putting in people stronger than himself or his ability to talk about setbacks.”…
Our Unsanitary Hospitals – WSJ.com That’s “Clean”, not a typo of “Lean.” Good column in the WSJ today by Betsy McCaughey, head of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths organization (link). She asks why restaurants and meat packing plants get…
Role of Management in a Lean Manufacturing Environment If you want to learn about the Toyota style of leading people, one of the best sources is Gary Convis. Here is a link to a column written directly by him. For…
I’m a bit mad at myself for inflicting some preventable human error on myself last night. It’s OK, I didn’t harm myself, but let me tell the story. I’ve been battling what’s either severe allergies or a mild cold for…
AP News | The Columbia Daily Tribune How’s this for government bureaucracy? People got creative in trying to save money to restock the New Orleans aquarium by chartering a boat to go catch fish instead of buying them. The catch?…
