All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
mlive.com: I was in Holland, Michigan quite a bit the past few years doing consulting work. That town has really been hit hard by factory closings and job cuts. See the next article below for more on one reason we’re…
Click here to request free book download This is a nice offer, a free electronic copy of the book “Lean Manufacturing for the Small Shop.” Please check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.org The RSS feed content you are…
China Economic Net: Even Chinese companies feel pressure from increased costs, whether from material or labor. “To Chinese enterprises, price is determined by the supply-demand relation, so it seems clearly different for various industries in aspect of the influences they…
U.S. revives China clothing import quota China Calls U.S. Move to Textile Limits Unfair, Urges Talks I don’t know if there are any easy answers in this situation. If Chinese textile goods are cheaper and/or better cause the market says…
Control Engineering : At least the certification won’t be like an APICS certification where you just have to take a test and you’re certified. “Three key aspects of the certification process will include: mentoring by and of certification candidates; a…
From Wall St. Journal (no subscription required for this one): Long article, not all of it is strictly “lean” related, but thought this was an interesting example of what sounds like an “Extended Value Stream Mapping” type activity — identifying…
Here is a link to an earlier post on the conference and another link about “Lean Consumption” (including a link to a recent HBR article). Click “Comments” to see some of my notes from what Womack said along on the…
Bloomberg.com Interesting that imports from China slowed last month, at least if you’re comparing just two data points. Analysts think there is good news to be found here that the economy is not slowing down (which I hope to be…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The American responsible for the plan to import cars made in China “contends he will field cars, made by Chinese automaker Chery, that will be at least 30 percent cheaper than the competition, including a sedan to compete…
Forbes.com: “Toyota is moving to increase output in North America because it believes more than two-thirds of vehicles it sells in the US should be made within North America to avoid the political and cultural tensions that have surfaced in…
MSNBC.com: Officials and leaders in Texas are already pushing Toyota to commit to expanding the yet-to-open San Antonio truck plant. “‘We have some 2,700 acres down there,’ Esmond explains. ‘I can assure you us Toyota folks are not very good…
wisbusiness Here are a few case studies of smaller firms using lean for growth. This work was done with the Wisconsin MEP program, part of the national network of state and federally funded lean consulting groups. I like how the…
