By Luke Van Dongen I am a huge fan of Jim Womack’s ability to identify and describe problems within complex systems simply and absolutely. Womack was a keynote speaker at the conference and used his time to convey his understanding…
By Luke Van Dongen Next in the blog series on the topic of applying lean tools to university courses is ‘Go & See’, which I personally believe can never be overdone. Getting back to our example from the Operations course…
By Luke Van Dongen For me, the topic of applying lean principles and tools to the classroom was the best part of the Linking Lean Thinking to Education conference. Admittedly, I am biased by the fact that this is the…
By Luke Van Dongen I was very fortunate to have met Bob Emiliani at the Linking Lean Thinking to Education conference in Worcester Mass last month. Bob has a wonderful combination of industry and academic experience and has several publications…
My apologies for the delay in following through with posts from the EdNet / LEAN conference. Here’s a bit on one of the presentations from the conference that I’m sure will spur on some discussion. Randall Cook from Utah State…
I saw the phrase in the title of this post on a BFI bin for recycling pop cans. I believe BFI was purchased by Allied Waste Industries 6 or 7 years ago. The bins certainly appear to be at least…
Last week I attended the joint meeting of LEAN (Lean Education Academic Network) and EdNet (Lean Aerospace Initiative Education Network) in Worcester Massachusetts. Here’s a link to the conference website: There were about 75 participants at the meeting and I…
For those interested in lean applications to education, there is an upcoming conference that you may want to check out. The conference is co-hosted by The Lean Aerospace Initiative Education Network (EdNet) and the Lean Education Academic Network (LEAN). The…
I’m sure that among the readers of The Lean Blog there there is nothing but support for the lean principles of developing and respecting people. However, even with the best of intentions, consistently abiding by these principles, particularly in fast…
Like Mark, I’m frustrated today. Recently I’ve been working to support a quality improvement blitz within a manufacturing facility. The plant is taking a step towards ISPC by establishing maximum levels of defects at the end of each zone. The…
Are lean and flexible equivalent terms? I’ve been seeing more and more about flexibility and hearing the term used interchangeably with lean. Flexibility, mainly referring to capital intensive equipment and plants continues to be a major theme in the plans…
In the age of file sharing, FTP sites, all sorts of web based collaboration tools and the ever dreaded email attachment, it’s as though everyone’s file cabinet is open to everyone else. This can be a great asset to any…
