Six Sigma Blog: Fire alarms: The Dell notebook scare and Six Sigma defect control CIO Magazine I’m sure you’ve heard of the cases of Dell laptops catching on fire and the resulting recall. Sony, the manufacturer of the batteries, offered…
Northwest advised workers to see treasure in trash | Reuters.com Here is an incredibly sad example of a company (or someone in the company) not having “respect for employees.” Northwest sent a “So You’ve Been Laid Off” guidebook with “helpful”…
Mike Rother, an excellent guy and also the guy that brought us all value stream mapping through the book Learning to See, has just written a reflection on pitfalls of value stream mapping for SME’s Lean Directions newsletter. Here are…
I’d like to welcome our latest Lean Blog contributor, Bill Hanover (his first post is here). Bill has been a frequent participant with the blog, posting many comments about articles and sharing many emails with me about lean. A little…
Low morale linked to management, not money Is this from the “well duh” category? The article is short and basically a press release, so I’ll put the full text below: A Chicago outplacement consulting firm says the main cause of…
JS Online:Toyota’s relationship with vendors is an important link in its success Here is a really nice column written by the CEO of a Harley Davidson supplier who sings the praises of Toyota’s model of supply chain cooperation. This is…
It is often said “what gets measured gets done.” I don’t quite believe that, but measurement has a clear impact on behaviors within an organization. Most of those behaviors are unfortunately negative. You can do more harm than good with…
CITIZEN-TIMES.com: Techniques improve factory efficiency at Industries for the Blind Here is a very interesting story about a North Carolina lean consultant who worked with an Industries for the Blind facility, where 40 blind employees work. “How, she wondered, do…
StartupGarden: Ten Blogs I Love I was very happy to be included on this list of favorite blogs written by Tom Ehrenfeld, another good friend of this blog. Tom is a writer, his website is www.startupgarden.com and he has a…
PodcasterNews – Industry Report 8-4 Lean Blog Podcast – LeanBlog.org The link above is a short interview I did with Ken Rayment for his podcast, the “Better Process Podcast.” He does a daily showwith interviews and manufacturing news, you can…
Lean Blog: Early Risers in Healthcare! (My belly aching from March) OK, a new early “low” of sorts. Currently visiting a hospital, patient blood draws start at 3 AM. Even with having to be there that early to observe the…
I’ve been working with “lean healthcare” in my day job for about a year now. I’m giving a presentation on Friday about lean healthcare for a manufacturing audience, and it provided an opportunity to reflect on what I’ve seen and…