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All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.

Rebuilding US Manufacturing

IndustryWeek Series Link Those of you who followed the link to, “Learning from Toyota – Again” from my Adding Value Vs. Reducing Cost post will likely have also seen that this article is the first installment of a year long…

Should Your COO Learn Japanese?

By Bill Waddell (Note from Mark Edmondson: Here’s a recent article written by LEAN Affiliate Bill Waddell that I think many of you will find interesting.) The terms “Lean Manufacturing” and “Japanese” are hardly synonymous. This may come as a…

Sunday’s Demand Spike for Pizza

WSJ.com – Pizza-Delivery Teams Are Training Hard For Sunday’s Game ($$$) I started reading this with great interest, expecting to read about the operations side of a pizza delivery business. It also made me think back to the folks at…

Too Much Email

Article Link How much email is too much? Perhaps an even better question – how much of your daily email communication adds value? Besides reciting the regular complaints about overflowing email boxes and added stress, this article, published in Canada’s…

Womack Wants To Clear The Record On JIT

IndustryWeek Column Here is the original article in question, from the Wall St Journal. The article did a little fear mongering, as the WSJ seems to do about once a year, about risks of “just in time” inventory practices. Womack…

Lean Healthcare: Another ThedaCare Article

Appleton Post-Crescent – Finding a better way Another article on a hospital organization that has been working on lean transformation. An earlier article is found here. Please check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.org The RSS feed content you…

Lean Government: Grand Rapids

State of the City address by Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell: It’s nice to see a city using lean methods and even more noteworthy that the mayor would talk about it in an address like this. I’m glad to see…

W. = "Won’t bail out" GM and Ford

WSJ.com – Bush Plays Down Bailout Prospects For GM and Ford: Also: GM posted more than an $8 Billion Loss for FY 2005, announced today. Excerpts: “President Bush said General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. should develop ‘a product…

Lean and Green in Texas

Thomas L. Friedman (free access via Denver Post): Although the focus of this column is on the environmental advantages of the new Texas Instruments fab in suburban Dallas, I think there’s a nice “lean” story here, as well. Toyota has…

Let’s Be Proactive on Safety

CBS News | Mine Deaths Spur Hearings, Legislation I’m not an expert on mine safety. I don’t know the first thing about mines. It is sad, however, that it has taken terrible tragedies in West Virginia to prompt calls to…

Toyota Leadership and Ford Leadership

Jim Press: ‘I was in love with cars every second’ Here is a bio of Toyota’s North American Sales President, Jim Press. It’s interesting to see the contrast between Toyota leadership and Ford leadership. Press has been with Toyota since…

Focus on short term hurt U.S. carmakers

Business Forum: Focus on short term hurt U.S. carmakers: Let’s hope Ford means it when they say they are going to focus on the long-term, ala Toyota. “In the 1980s, GM adopted lean production halfheartedly, even after it became clear…

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