Dell, in Shift, Will Offer PCs at Wal-Mart – New York Times I recently wrote about Dell’s move away from strict adherence to the direct selling model (and Mark Spearman talked about the idea and how Dell shot him down…
Louisville Slugger: The sweet spot: As the article points out, Kentucky is quite the hotbed of lean manufacturing, with the influence of the Toyota Georgetown plant. Another company claims to have been at it longer, Hillerich and Bradsby, the maker…
Rockford Register Star | Web site of the Rock River Valley Here’s a small case study from Rockford IL: For Leading Edge, a 120-employee shop that fabricates hydraulic tubing, the same Lean methods have increased efficiency, shortened response times and…
Thinking lean, a must for stronger, smaller Air Force Here’s an article about the Air Force’s ongoing Lean efforts, a Major General giving a speech about Lean in Turkey: General Rogers began with a big picture explanation of the Air…
By Dan Markovitz Last week the Wall Street Journal interviewed George David, the CEO of United Technologies. Though the conversation didn’t address his views on lean, he decries all forms of waste: You can’t walk through life with a trained…
Food Banks Go Hungry – WSJ.com ($$) This is something I blogged about in August 2005 (with a link then to Joe Ely’s blog), now the WSJ had an article yesterday. Nationwide, food banks — clearinghouses that distribute food donations…
Factory Physics is one of the most influential operations management frameworks ever written–and in this conversation, co-author Dr. Mark Spearman explains why it still matters. Listen to the Episode: For Episode #25, I’m pleased to have Dr. Mark Spearman, Founder…
I’m happy to announce a winner in the LeanBlog Contest that was sponsored by American LED-gible, Inc (www.ledgible.com). I had three outstanding entries, so it was a tough decision, but the winner is Andrea, who submitted an example from a…
Lean and the Environment | EPA Has anyone heard about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pushing Lean for environmental/conservation purposes? Interesting idea. The EPA website has a lot of basic info about Lean, their summary of Lean is: “Lean manufacturing…
Seconds count for Southwest | Dallas Morning News Here was a nice article from the Dallas paper a week ago about kaizen-type activities at Southwest Airlines. It’s not called Lean, nor does it reference Toyota, but it sounds like Lean.…
U.S. hanger factories lose out to Chinese manufacturers – March 5, 2007: “ This isn’t a Lean article, just an article that caught my eye some time back, detailing the demise of a factory that had production moved to China.…
In Bid for Better Care, Surgery With a Warranty – New York Times This outstanding NY Times article isn’t about “Lean” per se (they don’t call it out by name), but you can definitely see elements of Lean Thinking abound.…