New Zealand’s source for business, stock market & currency news on Stuff.co.nz Here is a decent lean overview, which includes a visit by John Shook to some New Zealand companies. One quote strikes me: The first step at both factories…
WSJ.com – Newest Director Shakes Up GM With Calls for Radical Change Today’s WSJ ($$ subscription required) has an article about GM’s newest director, Jerry York. Since he’ll spend a lot of time rabble rousing in Detroit, he’s having a…
When I worked at the GM Powertrain Livonia Engine Plant in the mid-1990s, the hallway display cases held posters celebrating something called “The Livonia Philosophy.” It read, in part, like this: “through trust, communication, and respect for the individual, we…
The Observer | Business | Simon Caulkin Here’s a provocative column from the UK. A few lean-type thoughts: “It’s no use putting good people to work in a crappy system; conversely, putting people in a good system and expecting them…
News: 14 Companies Earn Shingo Recognition I could believe it more if the Shingo people merely claimed that the prize rewarded local examples of some good lean practices, but they claim much more. Company competitiveness depends on factors less easily…
Chicago Tribune | Stuck at side of road: Interesting article here. “Ford, they say, suffers from years of short-term thinking and billions in questionable investments. While it tried to adopt the highly-efficient management strategies pioneered by Toyota, those efforts have…
Where It’s Been For years before starting the blog, I was the “emailing articles out to people guy.” I would often find an interesting article on lean manufacturing or supply chain concepts and would email them out to friends and…
Neosho Daily News For a while there, Wisconsin was the hotbed of lean articles. This week, it’s Missouri, and both articles are in a small town newspaper, the Neosho Daily News. First, it was La-Z-Boy, now it’s K&S Wire. Who…
I keep seeing this ad on the local Dallas-area cable system, for Lewis Chevrolet in a small town, Canton TX. It’s a folksy car dealer ad, not shouting like most car ads. The ad features a guy who must be…
WSJ.com – Pizza-Delivery Teams Are Training Hard For Sunday’s Game ($$$) I started reading this with great interest, expecting to read about the operations side of a pizza delivery business. It also made me think back to the folks at…
Japanese Automaker Drives Into NASCAR – Yahoo! News Will they apply kaizen to NASCAR? :-) It was announced earlier this week that a NASCAR edition of the Camry, the best-selling car in the U.S. in seven of the last eight…
IndustryWeek : Continuous Improvement Here is an outstanding column from Industry Week and editor Tonya Vinas. It came to my email box courtesy of the Industry Week newsletters (click here to sign up). Tonya starts by slamming the Wall St.…
