By Jamie Flinchbaugh One of the most underrated voices in the “lean” world is Tom Johnson. I still regularly recommend his latest book, now 6 years old, Profit Beyond Measure. It’s a little hard for some to read, but the…
Happy New Year! As 2006 ends, I hope many of you had a GREAT lean year. Please add your comments about your lean accomplishments for the year, or at least one key lean accomplishment. I was very fortunate to do…
TxDOT to motorists: Pay up even if tolls are tiny I’ve heard economists say that tolls roads are a very inefficient way of collecting taxes (you have to build tollbooths and hire people to collect tolls, etc.). Gas taxes, vehicle…
Here’s the winner of the Lean Blog Challenge Contest. Congratulations to Rich, the winner of an MP3 player pre-loaded with the first 13 episodes of the Podcast. Have advice for Rich? Feel free to post your comments here. Check back…
No, I’m not complaining about the old “4 hour window” for service appointments. I ran into a new type of waste this morning. I had a plumber appointment, with a 10 to 12 noon window (which I am OK with).…
StartupGarden: Tag in the Blogosphere OK, this is not Lean related, but I try to show a little personality around here once in a while. My friend, and fellow blogger, Tom Ehrenfeld, was pulled into a blogger game of “publish…
Hospitals prescribe increased reimbursements from insurers to aid recovery of sickly health care system Hospitals need to learn to reduce costs. You can’t just ask for more money to cover your rising costs. It’s a frequent topic on this blog,…
Sturm, Ruger to offer buyouts I’ve been getting entries in the “Lean Challenge” contest and read about this challenge online. We all talk about how lean shouldn’t drive layoffs. But what happens when you free up head count and can’t…
by Jamie Flinchbaugh I’m not sure if this has much to do with lean, other than to say that business leaders are needed to make lean work. My friend Randy Pinkett who last year won Donald Trump’s The Apprentice has…
Auto writer: Assembling Ford Focus isn’t so easy I saw this in the paper while in Detroit this week and cringed. Ford is actually letting a reporter help build an actual car for an actual customer?? Without actual training? I…
Personal Technology – WSJ.com The Wall Street Journal has an article today about two automated online backup systems, Mozy and Carbonite. Each costs about $50 a year to automatically, in the background, backup your files to a remote online server.…
Safety Issues on the Table: Saw this quote in an article about safety: “A range of issues and concerns fall under the rubric of ‘globalization,’ from the challenges of maintaining safe and healthy workplaces amidst the pressures of lean manufacturing…
