Why the Interest in GM’s Job Bank?
Lean Manufacturing Blog: GM Jobs bank programs — 12,000 paid not to work I know it’s kind of weird to link to my own post, but I saw the traffic logs and I had HUNDREDS of visits to this page…
Category Blog
All Blog Posts
All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
Jim Womack’s Latest Letter and a Q&A
This week, Jim Womack sent out his latest email newsletter, entitled “A Tale of Two Business Systems.” The Lean Enterprise Institute has offered up some of Jim’s time to answer a few selected questions about that letter or his recent…
Analysis of Ford Buyouts
Here is a current blog post (11/30/06) for those of you looking to read about the accepted Ford buyouts. Detroit News Article Link (from Feb) From a friend….. Here’s a creative, preemptive move most certainly designed to head off the…
Will You Wait until Dec. 06 to Make Your Numbers?
I wonder how many big companies are having their annual sales meeting or sales planning sessions for the year? How many companies that “do lean” are talking about “wow, we barely made it last year because we sold 30% of…
How much complexity is too much?
The Wharton School of Business publishes internet articles and editorial content bi-weekly covering a wide range of business topics and research. You can sign up for free at The latest edition included a special feature focused on complexity. I…
Airlines Expected to Lose More $$ in ’06
Article Link Worldwide, airlines are expected to lose $4 billion in 2006, despite continuing growth in air travel. Air traffic was up 7.5% in 2005 – further increases in the range of 5-6% are projected for 2006. From the article:…
Adding Value Vs. Removing Cost
Article Link Yesterday an article titled “Learning from Toyota – Again” by John Teresko was published on IndustryWeek.com. The focus of Teresko’s article is centered around 2 key questions: How does Toyota keep getting better? What keeps competitors from emulating…
Rebuilding US Manufacturing
IndustryWeek Series Link Those of you who followed the link to, “Learning from Toyota – Again” from my Adding Value Vs. Reducing Cost post will likely have also seen that this article is the first installment of a year long…
Should Your COO Learn Japanese?
By Bill Waddell (Note from Mark Edmondson: Here’s a recent article written by LEAN Affiliate Bill Waddell that I think many of you will find interesting.) The terms “Lean Manufacturing” and “Japanese” are hardly synonymous. This may come as a…
Sunday’s Demand Spike for Pizza
WSJ.com – Pizza-Delivery Teams Are Training Hard For Sunday’s Game ($$$) 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…