TL;DR After devastating 2020 wildfires blanketed Oregon vineyards in smoke, Native Flora Winery resisted quick judgments or panic decisions. Instead, the owners tested, learned, and experimented–prioritizing quality standards and long-term reputation over short-term financial pressure. Their response mirrors Lean thinking:…
Thanks to Arena Simulation Software for asking me to write this article for their regular customer newsletter: “Testing Lean Changes, Small or Large“ The article is freely available to any reader: Two short excerpts from the article: “Lean is about teams…
Six Sigma – People I might not be able to blog much the next few days, so I’ll pose this fun question. Has anyone heard of the Six Sigma winery, founded by a former GE executive? What would a “Lean…
Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #507 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Wendy K. Smith, co-author of the book Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. She will…
In Episode 23, Mark and Jamie return to finish out 2020, this time joined by Kentucky native Deondra Wardelle, so naturally Kentucky bourbon is our whiskey category of choice. Bourbons selected include Brough Brothers, Willett, and Barton 1792. After introducing…
My guest for Episode #390 is Keith Ingels, the TPS (Toyota Production System) Manager for Raymond Corporation — Raymond is part of Toyota Material Handling North America, which is part of Toyota Industries. Wait, so a Toyota company needs a…
tl;dr: Wineries in Spain and France–many with centuries of history–continue to improve through experimentation. They run small tests, learn from both successes and failures, and adapt over time. It’s a clear real-world example of PDSA in action: long-term excellence comes…
I don’t know anything about farming. The only time I spend on “farms” is visits to wineries that grow grapes, as I’ve blogged about before. I was contacted recently by Jesse Frost, who was working on this article that’s now…
I was fortunate to take a nearly two-week vacation recently, a trip that included a week in France. My wife and I had a chance to, I guess, do a number of “gemba visits” at some wineries in the Burgundy,…
Following up on my previous posts (here and here) on a recent visit to the Northern California Wine Country, I’m going to share a few more ideas and thoughts based on what I saw during the trip (when I wasn’t…
Growing grapes and making wine is certainly an art… but when you look into it there’s a lot of process involved. As I wrote about a bit last week, my wife and I recently spent two days in Sonoma County…
My wife and I just got back from four days in Napa and Sonoma counties doing, ahem, “gemba walks” at a number of wineries, both large and small. As tourists, we like doing winery visits where you get to walk…
