(United Press International): “‘The initial budget came back from OMB … at zero.” The Manufacturing Extension Partnership is being threatened with budget cuts again (almost an annual event). The MEP offices around the country provide lean training and consulting, particularly…
The New York Times > Business > Decline in Sales Sends Mitsubishi Motors on a Search for Financing A look into Japan’s approach to company bailouts — similar to what we’ve seen here with airlines and some manufacturers. Is it…
KLTV 7 Tyler-Longview-Jacksonville, TX: Another company looking for handouts. I found it funny that the Dell VP would say “I’m worried for our country” if North Carolina didn’t give them a zero taxes for 20 years deal to open a…
The New York Times J.T. Battenberg, CEO of Delphi, is looking for federal handouts for health care, R&D, etc. How much money can we generate by eliminating waste rather than looking for help from others?
The Washington Times: Business – January 13, 2005 “The biggest surprise in yesterday’s deficit report from the Commerce Department was a 2.3 percent drop in exports during November.” Please check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.org The RSS feed…
Article 1: Report: U.S. lost 1.5M jobs to China from 1989-2003 – Jan. 11, 2005 Article 2: Taipei Times – archives Two articles today about jobs and China. The first focuses on currency issues, how Chinese goods are artificially cheap…
Yahoo! News Interesting. It seems like Toyota is being forced into using the technology, based on demographic trends (retiring workforce, fewer workers). I didn’t think it was Toyota’s philosophy to choose automation over thinking human workers, unless the job was…
Article 1 — Who’s Afraid of China? — from NYTArticle 2 ––Fast Company article “Living in Dell Time” Not sure if this web reprint is an example of China IP protection issues (original article on NYtimes.com requires payment), but this…
Johnson Controls Automotive Group Begins Largest Deployment of Lean Operations Software; Factory Logic Solution Extends and Enhances Company’s Lean Manufacturing Methodology Enterprise software for lean environments is different than the classic MRP or ERP systems. Many companies use “software” for…
China threat to Mexico’s border factories ebbs: “‘There are a lot of products it makes no sense to produce in China.’” Good article comparing Mexico (close to U.S. customers) with China (long boat ride away). Toyota’s strategy seems to be…
WSJ.com – (Subscription Only) A reminder that profit = price – cost, where the price is set by the market (not the old approach of price = cost + profit). Sure you might be able to increase your selling price,…
LEI Features Excellent article (registration required, Word Doc) written by well-known Toyota expert and author John Shook.
