As Auto Prosperity Shifts South, Two Towns Offer a Study in Contrasts – New York Times Here’s a free Detroit News version of the article. My hometown, Livonia, Michigan is hurting with the prolonged slump in the auto industry. I…
Update 12/17: Click here for part 2 of the Womack podcast. LeanBlog Podcast #12 brings us a special guest, James P. Womack of the Lean Enterprise Institute, the author of many books, including the classic (published 10 years ago) Lean…
Hollywood Report – WSJ.com: I’m not a fan of “The O.C.” but this caught my eye in the WSJ today: “What went wrong at ‘The O.C.’? It’s impossible to pinpoint an exact reason, since TV series aren’t assembly-line products that…
I received an email newsletter from APICS the other day, an email I question the central premise of. The email headline says: “A Lean GM?” At least they put that in quotes. Maybe sometimes an editor does that to not…
Question for the blog readers: Who are the great lean companies? Don’t give me a list of Shingo Prize winners. Don’t tell us who has done a lot of lean stuff or who has used lean practices here and there,…
Kaizen and Lean Manufacturing thoughts | Gemba Panta Rei Good post from Jon Miller here on his blog. He’s right, most companies and leaders (especially before lean) don’t want to admit their problems or weaknesses. Corporate pride, if you will…
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…
Boeing does more with less | TheNewsTribune.com | Tacoma, WA Lean in aerospace sounds different than the lean I know. I don’t know the first thing about Boeing really, although I did get to tour one of their plants in…
Inside Bay Area – IBA – Alameda Times-Star – Home Here’s a pretty glowing article about how NUMMI, the Toyota/GM joint venture plant in Fremont CA, focuses on employee health and safety. When I visited NUMMI last year, one of…
Inside Bay Area – IBA – Tri-Valley Herald – Local News Here’s an article about the Toyota-GM joint venture plant known as NUMMI. I had a chance to visit NUMMI late last year and I published some of my “tour…
Society of Manufacturing Engineers Here’s a good overview of the Toyota/GM “Joint Venture” plant, NUMMI. I put “JV” in quotes because, sure there is joint ownership, but it’s not really jointly managed. A manager at NUMMI says: Most people are…
Bob Nardelli is Watching Update Jan 4 2007 — I really had it wrong on Nardelli, see the latest news and post. They don’t call it a “gemba walk”, but in the new Fast Company magazine, there is a profile…