By Jason Turgeon: In the last couple of weeks, Mark’s been hammering the midwestern grocery store chain Meijer for ruthlessly timing employees on checkout time “efficiency” (post 1, post 2). Instead of rewarding employees for delivering fantastic customer service, management…
Amazon made some news at the end of last week when it announced plans to redesign its packaging and shipping practices across a variety of products. The initiative is called “frustration-free packaging,” and it should be instantly clear what it…
By Jason Turgeon: It looks like the Lean + Green movement is gathering steam. In the last week, I’ve seen three pretty big efforts that formalize the relationship. This is great news for members of both camps, as Lean management…
By Jason Turgeon: Burt’s Bees started out making natural beeswax lip balm back in the ’80’s and ended up making hundreds of other similar body-care products before the company was sold to Clorox last year. I keep a tin of…
By Jason Turgeon: Edie.net, which bills itself as “Europe’s largest environmental website,” for what it’s worth, has a good article today on something it’s calling a “5-day-car.” The focus of the article is purportedly green, talking about waste reduction and…
By Jason Turgeon: This is a Lean-meets-EPA powerpoint. Download the original here. Click the little window emblem in the upper-right corner of the embedded image to see it full-screen. It’s been a while since I had the chance to post…
By Jason Turgeon: It seems that with oil nearing $140 a barrel, everyone is suddenly excited about improving efficiencies across the board in the world of transportation and fuels. Applying Lean to a process, whether it’s the manufacturing of cars…
By Jason Turgeon: This week is National Drinking Water Week! If that doesn’t excite you, think about the Lean implications of this dreadful story about the deaths of 80 children last month in South Africa resulting from a breakdown in…
By Jason Turgeon: As a regular part of my job, I visit large industrial sites (mostly sewage treatment plants-yum!). This means that I have to have an OSHA certification in worker safety. Every year, my employer hires a trainer to…
By Jason Turgeon: Google made headlines last year when it announced it that it was going to devote a significant chunk of cash to developing renewable energy that was cheaper than coal (the RE eSolar, a small startup that appears…
By Jason Turgeon: China’s everywhere in the news these days. It seems like you can’t open a newspaper (or a feed reader) without reading an article about the summer Olympics, its booming economy, the situation in Tibet, and growing unease…
By Jason Turgeon: In my first post a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the tension between what I called “new” and “old” environmentalism. Not that I had expected to be the first to notice this tension, but I…
