I’m not anti-Wal-Mart, anti-Starbucks or anything like that. I think people should be free to compete in a fair market, and if Starbucks brews a better pot than Bob’s Coffee Shack, then Bob should either get better or close. But…
Since Mark has been posting on the woes of the Big 2 automakers based in Michigan, I thought I would share some interesting statistics. Much is said about labor rates in the U.S. compared to China and other countries, but…
Chicago Sun Times I don’t mean to turn this into a political forum. I will say I don’t like Hillary Clinton or her politics. But, it always catches my interest when you hear any politician talking about lean and the…
Departments – ASSEMBLY Here is the latest lean column from Jamie Flinchbaugh. You can read my Q&A with Jamie here, and he is also the author of the book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Lean.” Jamie makes the argument that the main…
This Is Broken – Hotel room warning I saw a large ad in the paper Friday that reminded me of this blog posting (link above). Be sure to click on the link to see a picture of what I’m talking…
BRL005_NDES_Flow_Rack – Bosch Rexroth Corp. I’m sure most lean practioners have used flow racks for material storage, part presentation, and/or kanban systems. Here is a rack that has something new (at least to me). The rack (large picture here) has…
Bloomberg.com: News & Commentary Check out the link on the right hand side for the interview with Jim Womack (requires Real Player software). Here are some highlights, I’m paraphrasing the best I can. On GM not catching up to Toyota:…
Here is a sad article about a strike at a factory in Indiana that makes trumpets and trombones. It’s the UAW, yes that UAW! No, not car horns, brass horns. OK, enough bad boneheaded puns. It’s a fairly one-sided story…
IndustryWeek : Lean: Closing the Reality Gap Here is an article with a link to an upcoming Industry Week webcast (there will be software vendors on the call, you’ve been warned). One focus of the webcast is supposed to be…
I spend a good amount of time working in Excel, analyzing data and such. I often accidentally hit the “F1” key in a clumsy attempt to hit “Esc”. The keys are right next to each other and each key is…
Seth’s Blog: Waiting in line Another thought provoking post from Seth Godin. Although he doesn’t write about lean, think about the examples he gives: Lack of “order taking” capacity (in two examples), leads to lost revenue (and/or the wasting of…
Here are two contrasting stories from my past week. The stories made me think of muda (waste) and kaizen, or at least the promise of kaizen. Waste in Customer Service: Last week, I wrote about the need to take my…