Lean Student Paper Contest – Win $$$
By Jamie Flinchbaugh OK, maybe not $$$, but you can win $500. As some of you may know, I am passionate about education. Here’s a post I did on lean in education, but most of my dollars and energy goes…
Year 2007
Problem Solving Example
Are you working on the True Problem? Lean Blogger David Meier tipped me off to this interesting post about root cause problem solving, an example inspired by the book he co-authored with Jeff Liker, The Toyota Way Fieldbook. Check out…
Toyota Roundup
A few articles about Toyota from the past week: Toyota boss let the customer drive (Globe and Mail) This was an interview with the outgoing President of Toyota Canada who, in typically Toyota style, focuses a lot on what the…
Respect in Retail Roundup (Wal-Mart and Home Despot)
Forbes Article on Wal-Mart Here is a decidedly pro-Wal-Mart article (“the fair and balanced Lean Blog”) in a follow up to this post about Wal-Mart’s new employee scheduling practices. Forbes points out that Lowes and Target also use this type…
"Learning to Lean" Newsletter
Main Page — January 2007 One of the lean newsletters I subscribe to is the “Learning to Lean” newsletter by Darren Dolcemascolo from EMS Consulting. This month’s newsletter has some links to some 5S overview articles and there’s usually something…
Lean Challenge Response: Bill Hanover
Here is a response to the Lean Challenge contest entry (click here to read the situation submitted by Rich, a blog reader). Click on the “Contest” link at the bottom of this post to see more responses. If you have…
The Excitement of Starting with Lean
One thing I love about doing consulting work is that you get to see people go through the early excitement of learning about lean for the first time. Seeing the proverbial light bulbs going off is energizing, to say the…
Signs are Not Error Proofing: Electrical Circuit Breaker Edition
I saw this at a hospital lab last year, a great example of true error proofing vs. just putting up warning signs. “Cautions” and “Warnings” are lazy engineering, in general, with product design. Signs are not good problem-solving in any…
Is Wal-Mart’s Algorithmic Scheduling Lean — or Disrespectful to People?
TL;DR: Matching staffing to customer demand can make sense from a Lean perspective — but when scheduling systems create unpredictable hours and treat workers as variable costs, they undermine respect for people and ultimately harm both employees and customers. Wal-Mart…
Bad Visual Control Example
Click here for the bad example, via ThisIsBroken.com The sometimes outstanding, sometimes whiny “ThisIsBroken” blog has a funny photo of a cruise ship door that has two signs: Emergency Exit Crew Only I guess the good news is I doubt…
Lean Challenge Response: David Meier
Here is a response to the Lean Challenge contest entry (click here to read the situation submitted by Rich, a blog reader). Click on the “Contest” link at the bottom of this post to see more responses. If you have…
Bad Boss Roundup
A few articles in the news today about bad bosses. Hopefully, more than a few have 2007 resolutions to get better. Chances are though, the bad bosses think they are great. If your boss has resolutions for becoming a better…
