I realize that I’m not doing well on personal inventory management when I’m sending out Mothers Day cards with Christmas stamps! At least that’s just a few bucks worth of inventory the drawer. I don’t send “snail mail” much anymore,…
An email from a friend, he and his company will remain anonymous. “OK so it’s confession time. I’ve been reading your Blog fairly regularly here at work. We dabble in lean stuff here. Generally it’s frustrating reading an expert opinion…
Here is an example of “everyday lean” I discovered: Rather than giving a late “toner low” notice that says the toner will run out (usually right as print quality degrades significantly), this printer gives specific notice, that you have 1000…
USATODAY.com – Runway safety system has pilots seeing red This counts as “everyday lean” if you fly a lot like I do. A system like this seems long overdue, a system to prevent pilots from taxiing down occupied runways. In…
Everyday Examples of Mistake-Proofing I’ve linked to this web page before, but I love it and I’ll link to it again, on the topic of error proofing. Please check out my main blog page at www.leanblog.org The RSS feed content…
In the age of file sharing, FTP sites, all sorts of web based collaboration tools and the ever dreaded email attachment, it’s as though everyone’s file cabinet is open to everyone else. This can be a great asset to any…
Here’s the latest in the series on Everyday Lean. I love online bill payment. My bank and the web make it easy to view and pay bills while on the road, and eliminate a lot of paper that would otherwise accumulate…
I know the airport isn’t normally a bastion of lean, but the Albuquerque airport rental car shuttle bus stood out yeserday, in a bad way. There were three empty, idling buses with drivers queued up to take customers back to…
I’ve been very interested in applying lean to daily work routines and practices and have been (unfortunately very slowly) working on a series of posts that provide various ideas and examples on how lean practices can be applied to every…
For the first installment of the Everyday Lean series, I thought I would stay with the email theme that originally got me started thinking down this path. Email is a part of just about everyone’s modern workday. There are many…
I’m working from home this week and have a bit of a “kitchen kaizen” kick, as evidenced by my “lean oatmeal” post. Last Christmas, I received a new all-in-one “grind and brew” coffee pot from Cuisinart. I’ve ground my own…
I’m often challenged by people (including my wife sometimes), “why don’t you apply lean concepts at home, Mr. Lean?” I haven’t shadowed my kitchen items (that would look bad), but I do apply some general 5S concepts, including keeping most…