Always Room For Improvement
I had an internal factory tour that reminded me of Mark’s recent blog on the Not So Lean Factory Tour. The plant was not nearly the horror story Mark experienced, and in fact, it was one of best examples of…
I had an internal factory tour that reminded me of Mark’s recent blog on the Not So Lean Factory Tour. The plant was not nearly the horror story Mark experienced, and in fact, it was one of best examples of…
American LED-gible Products I’d like to welcome American LED-gible (www.ledgible.com) as a sponsor on the Lean Blog. About the company: American LED-gible Incorporated has been in business since 1976 providing process control solutions for the workplace. We are a small,…
Juggling act sets up rink Even though I’m still a pretty die hard Red Wings fan, I live in Stars country now. Don’t ask me what I’ll do if the Wings and Stars meet in the second round. I went…
By Dan MarkovitzBack in October, Lifehacker ran a lengthy article on “personal kaizen.” The thrust of the piece is how we can improve our lives by adopting the kaizen approach of the TPS and applying it to our own work…
My main point here I think is “Tech Support should NOT be part of the normal process.” I needed to register for an internal company tech support website (for teleconference support) and was trying to log in to the website.…

Car Keys Could Go the Way of Tail Fins – New York Times So I’ve finally become a Toyota driver, driving an employer-provided Prius for over a month now. Answer to the first question I usually get, 42.9 MPG is…
Article Link Thanks to Ron for sending this article my way. Check out his excellent blog post on the difference between being fast and “playing fast,” tying the football idea to manufacturing (although I’m hoping my Wildcats can finally beat…
Lean opportunities coming to Central Texas I’ve been critical of folks who lump Dell into the “lean” world, since Dell hasn’t really done much according to the Toyota model (previous posts on Dell). Dell developed its own model, the Dell…
Since I’ve been working exclusively in healthcare for almost two years, I haven’t been in too many factories lately. I was excited to get an invitation from the local Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) chapter to tour a local factory.…
Star-Telegram.com | 04/06/2007 | America’s Great Automotive Stuntmen Local car columnist Ed Wallace seems like a friendly curmudgeon. This week, he writes about Ford’s CEO Allan Mulally and his adventures at Village Ford (back in Dearborn). Wallace rightfully takes on…
When inventory is not waste – The Manufacturer.com It’s unfortunate that one of the early (1983) popular books about lean (or “just in time,” as was the fashion of the day) was titled “Zero Inventories.” Many people who didn’t read…
UAW, Toyota workers to talk We often talk about Toyota and “respect for people” as one of their main pillars. I’m sure most of us paint a pretty idealistic picture of Toyota when we talk to others: Safety and Quality…