Here’s a terminology question: When somebody evaluates a situation and says “such and such practice doesn’t seem very lean,” I sometimes cringe. Why? Because I don’t like Lean? No, not at all. I’d rather hear things discussed and evaluated in…
Here’s a follow up to my earlier post on 5S not being about neatness (or for neatness’ sake). A reader submitted this anonymous comment that’s worth highlighting: Our plant has started a 5S program that is very counter productive. Tools…
Coors New Cold Activated Bottle Campaign uses Chromazoneâ„¢ Chill ‘n’ Reveal Ink Mmmmmm…..beer. I’m not sure if this was really necessary, but here’s a good one for 5 PM Friday. Just saw a TV for a gimmicky Coors Light bottle…
Random thought for the week: You always hear “we’re not Toyota, we don’t build cars, etc. etc.” in context of making excuses for not implementing Lean, since: Lean comes from Toyota (which earlier inspiration from Ford, TWI, etc.) It’s obviously…
Boston Consulting Group Study It took a major strategy firm and some “simulations” to convince some folks that transporting manufactured goods from China can be slow and risky. Imagine that! Congestion at North America’s West Coast ports and continuing capacity…
Kevin Meyer, in our Podcast interview, mentioned his upcoming moderation of a panel at the Manufacturing Business Conference at Northwestern’s Kellogg School. Now, Kevin has two outstanding posts on his blog summarizing his experience there, talking about offshoring, China, and…
Following up my earlier post about instructions for scooping ice cream, and key points, a blog reader , Bryan Lund submitted this commentary. Click here to download a Word doc version of the “Job Breakdown Sheet” that he created for…
Portrait of an ER at the Breaking Point – Newsweek Health Here is an incredibly sad case study of an Emergency Room that’s a mess… as well as the hospital it is attached to. It’s overly simplistic to say “the…
Detroit News: Toyota posts $14B profit Catching up on the news from last week. “We believe our continuous efforts have steadily contributed to our record net revenues, operating income and net income,” said Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe. The quote about…
As the LeanBlog Podcast reaches its 25th episode, I wanted to get some feedback from the listeners. About 1000 people download each Podcast, which is exciting and humbling at the same time. I appreciate y’all (or “you guys,” to my…
MSN Careers – Is a Messier Desk Better? I was going to blog about this book before and Dan Markovitz had beaten me to it. But, Matt, a Lean Blog reader, sent me this new article on the same topic…
I’ll probably start this as a weekly or monthly feature, publishing the links and articles that I tuck aside as “drafts” but never end up blogging about. This will be more just a list of links, with no commentary. TPM…