TIME.com: 10 Questions for Jeff Bezos — Aug. 01, 2005: “HERE’S A QUESTION YOU PROBABLY HEAR ALL THE TIME: READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY? [Laughs.] I read a book recently about Toyota’s lean production methodology, which is very interesting.” This…
Twice in the past week now, our department has had this similar problem happen. First, a global logistics company (rhymes with sledex) did not empty our overnight letter receptacle, even though they did pick up our freight. The second incident…
The Register This isn’t really a “lean” story, but the idea of customer focus strikes me here. As a company, how do you handle things when customers can so openly communicate with each other on the internet? Customers were complaining…
The Kinston Free Press Here is a nice little local story about a small (26 employees) company that started with lean (sounds like they did some training and a 5-day kaizen event to improve their production line). It’s always interesting…
Management & Marketing: Since we were talking about “lean software” yesterday…. I’m not an expert on Toyota history so I can’t validate every assumption made in this article. If you can, please click “Comments” below and let us know what…
Free Career Journal Link — new link for July 12 This article talks about Chinese manufacturing companies not in the context of cheap labor, but in the context of management skill. Most successful Chinese companies are the result of turning…
Business Edge News Magazine – businessedge.ca – Ontario Edition: A rebuttal from Alabama (and Toyota) Does your company want intelligent workers who can think or the “cheapest” labor you can find? Here is an article about Toyota’s choice of Ontario…
Bloomberg.com: U.S.: Comments from the Ford president: “Padilla says Toyota serves as an example of how to make winning models. “Toyota doesn’t hit home runs every time at bat,” he says during an interview in the executive dining room. “When…
As I sat on the plane, waiting to depart, we watched a video that featured the airline CEO (the airline rhymes with Bontinental). The CEO, in his smiling delivery, talked about the “most professional people in the business” and showed…
Today, I had to drive to return a rental car at Newark Airport and sawan example of what might be “non root cause” thinking in action. As Iapproached the airport on the highway, there were signs for threeseparate airport entrances…
International Herald Tribune Thomas L. Friedman starts a recent column with a provocative question: “If I am rooting for General Motors to go bankrupt and be bought out by Toyota, does that make me a bad person? It’s not that…
ContraCostaTimes.com | 06/12/2005 Thomas Friedman’s book “The World Is Flat” is great reading for anyone looking at issues of globalization. This article is nice summary of sorts, with reference to his “Dell Theory of Global Security” (or something like that)…