TL;DR: At GM, fear and poor leadership blocked bad news from flowing both up and down the organization. Executives were shielded from reality, frontline workers weren’t told the truth, and trust eroded as a result. Without leaders going to the…
Can Alan Mulally save Ford? – May. 11, 2009 Interesting story last month about Ford and CEO Alan Mulally. He’s a Toyota admirer and Lean devotee’ from his time at Boeing. FORTUNE magazine was allowed to share a diagram that…
Highlights from the History of Industrial Engineering and Healthcare: Part 1 Wanted to share a link to an article I wrote recently for the Society for Health Systems newsletter. The article begins: For those who are new to the fields…
YouTube – Ford Model T – 100 Years Later A bit of manufacturing and Lean history here…. since Henry Ford’s writings and practices helped influence Toyota and the development of the Toyota Production System. Many of Henry Ford’s methods seem…
BBC World Service – Business – 5/05/2009 – Car Crash The BBC aired a revisiting of a story from 2007, I found this thanks to an alert on Twitter, a message from a guy named @KanuDawg said: Some guy named…
I feel a bit insensitive posting this video considering the continued plant closure announcements in the auto industry and Chrysler’s bankruptcy, but don’t blame me, blame “The Onion” (the web’s funniest fake news)… But, keep in mind this video makes…
TL;DR: Ford wants to learn from Toyota without blindly copying–but Lean isn’t just about continuous improvement and efficiency. Without a deep commitment to respect for people and long-term thinking, copying Toyota’s tools won’t deliver Toyota’s results. Ford CEO Mulally shares…
Ok, so I’ll combine a mish-mash of Ford related topics into a single post here. First off, it’s the 100th anniversary of the Model T, introduced in 1908. Yesterday’s USA Today has an article about the anniversary and some interesting…
Changeover.com You might be surprised to see that phrase. Say “no” to quick changeover?? That’s a core method in the Toyota Production System, right? Well, a method called “SMED” or “Single Minute Exchange of Dies” is. Why the distinction in…
Seth’s Blog: Henry Ford and the source of our fear I really like Seth Godin’s blog… but when he steps into “Lean” territory, he tends to be wrong (as he was last year). In his recent post, he explores the…
One of the most fascinating trends out of there is the spread of Toyota folks into other old-line automakers or parts suppliers — Gary Convis, Jim Press, and Jim Farley, to name three. What impact can they have outside of…
This month marks a pretty significant milestone, 50 years since Toyota first started selling cars in the U.S. A collection of articles:Toyota marks 50 years in U.S. Dallas Morning News It’s important to keep in mind that Toyota was hardly…