Question 2 in the Lean Blog survey about Lean obstacles took the same choices as Question 1 and forced the respondents to choose the TOP reason why they struggled with Lean. The choice that wasn’t available in the LEI survey…
Here’s a light hearted topic for Lean Thinkers. “Overprocessing” is one of the 8 Types of Waste that we talk about in a Lean context (it comes from Toyota and Taiichi Ohno). One way of describing overprocessing is that it…
The reason Andy Carlino and I named our book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road is that we felt that not only was a company to go on a lean journey that never ends, but also the…
Here is Episode #18 of the LeanBlog Podcast. My guest today is Eric Christiansen, the President of a translation services company, OmniLingua (more can be found here on their philosophy as a company, being a self-described “Deming Company.”) I was…
Thanks again for trying our “5 Whys” Survey. I hope you’ll come back to the Lean Blog and our community here. If you left your email address, you will be entered in the drawing for the prizes listed below. You’ll…
The Lean Library Here is a long overdue review of the book, The Toyota Way Fieldbook. I wrote the review following the format of The Lean Library and have also gotten the review published over there. The Fieldbook is an…
Here is the second LeanBlog Podcast, featuring author and consultant Norman Bodek, President of PCS Press. The first one can be found here and you can visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS or…
In the first-ever Lean Blog Podcast, Mark Graban talks with Norm Bodek about quick and easy Kaizen and how it differs from large, event-based improvement efforts. Bodek explains how simple, employee-led improvements–supported by trust, experimentation, and respect for people–can make…
Unless you subscribe to Superfactory, you probably haven’t noticed a nearly raging debate on the true contributions to “lean” and the Toyota Production System by one Dr. Shigeo Shingo. Here’s a little of the storyline. It basically comes down to…
A popular search term for people coming to the blog is “lean manufacturing quotes.” I’m not real big on using quotes and don’t have a ready collection handy, but I thought I would reach out to you, the blog readers.…
by Jamie Flinchbaugh Any growth story is eventually met wth an industry wide waste of overproduction, or glut of capacity. When this happens, plants have to shutter, jobs are lost and there is tremendous upheavel and angst in dealing with…
San Antonio: a blueprint to lure Toyota – Triad – MSNBC.com: An article about how San Antonio and Texas lured the soon-to-open Toyota plant, with 20 years of relationship building. “‘Toyota spends a lot more time developing people,’ Hall said.…