Lean Factory Design Part 1
I did some of my long-ago masters thesis work on factory design (you can read a rather dated article on the topic here). I’ve had the opportunity to design factory layouts ranging from a $1B investment down to a company…
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All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Handoffs = Errors
I saw a perfect illustration this morning of how unnecessary handoffs in a process can lead to errors. I visited a local coffee shop in Albuquerque and ordered a cup of coffee from the woman working the register. I asked…
Tax Day and Leveling
So it’s almost tax day, April 17th this year. In a way, it’s an ultimate batch process, everybody having their returns due the same day during the year. That’s over 135 million tax returns. All at once. It probably wouldn’t…
How You Treat People…
CEOs say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character I bet there is a corollary, I’ll propose it: “Blogger says how CEO’s treat hourly assembly personnel can predict a lot about lean success.” I agree with…
Some Different Definitions
Answer Girl: Poka-yoke Thanks to Tom for pointing this out to me. It’s a definition of the lean term “poka -yoke” written by someone who doesn’t work with lean. She has a good definition: Any built-in method or tool that…
Need to Error Proof This?
Yahoo! News Photo A cargo plane in Brazil….. think they’ll just punish the person who screwed up or will they error proof it so the plane can’t be unevenly loaded in the future? Click on the article link for the…
Leveling Restaurant Traffic
WSJ.com – Dunkin’ Donuts Tries to Go Upscale, But Not Too Far I haven’t seen one of these first hand, but the parent company of Dunkin’ Donuts has experimented with triple-branded restaurant buildings (a move they are backing down from).…
Extending the Life of Equipment
Here’s an interesting article on how Chrysler will be selling its manufacturing equipment from the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant to a Russian manufacturer. This isn’t the first deal of its kind, but it shows that Chrysler is being creative in…
Wal-Mart to buy MORE from overseas?
WSJ.com – Wal-Mart Sticks With Fast Pace Of Expansion Despite Toll on Sales From today’s Wall St. Journal: Wal-Mart is striving to bolster its returns by buying more goods directly from overseas and paring its inventory costs by billions of…
Where do you spend your $?
I’m not anti-Wal-Mart, anti-Starbucks or anything like that. I think people should be free to compete in a fair market, and if Starbucks brews a better pot than Bob’s Coffee Shack, then Bob should either get better or close. But…
Reading “Hardwiring Excellence” by Quint Studer
Hardwiring Excellence by Quint Studer As I continue my journey in lean healthcare, I’m enjoying the chance to learn about the cultures of healthcare organizations. One book I’ve started reading could easily apply to lean efforts in any setting. The…
State Competitiveness
Since Mark has been posting on the woes of the Big 2 automakers based in Michigan, I thought I would share some interesting statistics. Much is said about labor rates in the U.S. compared to China and other countries, but…
