Category Blog

All Blog Posts

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

Do Manufacturers Need Federal Help?

The New York Times J.T. Battenberg, CEO of Delphi, is looking for federal handouts for health care, R&D, etc. How much money can we generate by eliminating waste rather than looking for help from others?

Trade deficit likely to pass $600 billion

The Washington Times: Business – January 13, 2005 “The biggest surprise in yesterday’s deficit report from the Commerce Department was a 2.3 percent drop in exports during November.” Please check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.org The RSS feed…

Two articles on Losing Jobs to China

Article 1: Report: U.S. lost 1.5M jobs to China from 1989-2003 – Jan. 11, 2005 Article 2: Taipei Times – archives Two articles today about jobs and China. The first focuses on currency issues, how Chinese goods are artificially cheap…

With Japan aging, Toyota to staff factories with robots

Yahoo! News Interesting. It seems like Toyota is being forced into using the technology, based on demographic trends (retiring workforce, fewer workers). I didn’t think it was Toyota’s philosophy to choose automation over thinking human workers, unless the job was…

A Look Inside Dell Computer (2 Articles)

Article 1 — Who’s Afraid of China? — from NYTArticle 2 ––Fast Company article “Living in Dell Time” Not sure if this web reprint is an example of China IP protection issues (original article on NYtimes.com requires payment), but this…

Lean Software Implementation

Johnson Controls Automotive Group Begins Largest Deployment of Lean Operations Software; Factory Logic Solution Extends and Enhances Company’s Lean Manufacturing Methodology Enterprise software for lean environments is different than the classic MRP or ERP systems. Many companies use “software” for…

China threat to Mexico’s border factories ebbs

China threat to Mexico’s border factories ebbs: “‘There are a lot of products it makes no sense to produce in China.’” Good article comparing Mexico (close to U.S. customers) with China (long boat ride away). Toyota’s strategy seems to be…