All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Coping With Disaster – 1/30/2007 – Manufacturing.Net Here’s another article with the theme of how “just in time” (JIT) is too risky for supply chain purposes. This type of article usually pops up in the WSJ about once a year…
Don’t Strain Yourself Here is a great article about how a company has implemented lean to improve safety. Concepts like 5S and waste reduction go hand in hand with ergonomics, safety, quality, and productivity. Oh, and this company is from…
Lean Six Sigma Academy Blog: The Toyota Way Here is s news story that Ron, at the Lean Six Sigma Academy Blog, found on YouTube. The video is below and I had a few comments. First off, the reporter says…
Learning about Lean Joe Ely has popped up on his blog with an interesting post about a potential pull system for stocking soda machines with the right mix for the customers in a given location. Joe points out that prediction…
LeanBlog Message Board We’re getting some good discussion at times on the Message Board, people helping each other out with their lean challenges. Check it out. “Kaizen newspapers” is one term used to describe the publication of before and after…
Airbus cuts costs by learning from auto industry – MarketWatch Here’s an article that talks about Airbus and their lean efforts. The moving production line, which Airbus calls “lean manufacturing,” breaks with previous civil aviation industry practice whereby aircraft were…
Why U.S. automakers like GM and Ford are losing money – Jan. 26, 2007 Wow, leave it to a professional journalist to spin a phrase like my headline for this post. We don’t really need another post or discussion here…
No, this isn’t about Al Gore and his infamous Social Security “lock box.” This is about suggestion boxes that we sometimes see hanging on the wall in workplaces. With my current lean project, we co-opted the existing department suggestion box…
Productivity Cafe: Stop Junk Mail Lean Blog reader Osvaldo brought this up as an example of waste — mail that ends up in your mailbox (catalogs, solicitations) that goes right into your garbage can. Apparently, it’s “National Junk Mail Awareness…
I went through a discussion today that reminded me of a similar situation early in a lean effort at my old manufacturing company a few years back. Early in lean efforts, one of the things I focus on is 5S,…
For those of you who listen to the LeanBlog Podcasts using the streaming player in the browser, that is now fixed. That had been broken for Podcasts #14 (Dave Gleditsch) through #17 (David Meier). If you were unable to listen…
I’m sure most of you are familiar with or have used the Akro blue bins for organizing parts, tools, or a kanban system. The bins are used all over factories and they are used quite often in hospitals (look in…
