Manufacturing is where many Lean ideas were first developed—but lasting results never come from tools alone. This archive explores manufacturing through the lens of leadership, safety, culture, and systems thinking, drawing lessons from real plants, executives, and frontline experiences that still matter today.
From Toyota and NUMMI to modern aerospace, appliance, and industrial operations, these posts show how manufacturing excellence depends on respect for people, learning from problems, and designing systems that make the right work easier.
Back in 2006, I wrote my first blog post about the unfortunate use of “assembly line” to mean “bad quality.” The context there was healthcare people complaining about Lean as being a pathway to “assembly line medicine.” Not all assembly…
My guest for Episode 311 is Jess Orr, a continuous improvement practitioner at WestRock, a large paper and packaging company, where she helps plants foster a culture of continuous improvement and employee engagement.
\Her experience includes working directly for Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky. She is particularly passionate about sharing best practices across industries, which motivated her to found Yokoten Learning.
In today's episode, we talk about her path from Six Sigma Black Belt to a Lean-thinking engineer at Toyota. How did she progress from solving problems herself to developing others? We'll talk about a blog post that she wrote for this blog earlier this year, Lean and ROI, leadership and culture, and much more. What is it like working outside of Toyota again? I hope you enjoy the discussion.
I started my career in manufacturing, so that's just one reason I'm interested in the topics of offshoring (sending manufacturing work overseas) and what's now called "reshoring," or bringing jobs and factories back to the U.S.
Somebody at A.T. Kearney sent me a link to their recent report on reshoring, with the headline:
Reshoring in Reverse Again
US manufacturers are not exactly coming back in droves. In fact, the 2018 Reshoring Index shows that imports from traditional offshoring countries are at a record high.
When you learn to look at data and workplace metrics through the "Process Behavior Chart" methodology, you learn to be skeptical of text descriptions like "a record high." Does "a record high" mean that the data point is statistically meaningful? Not always.
Mark's Note: Today's post is the first guest post by Jess Orr, who you might remember from the webinars that she did for KaiNexus. I hope you enjoy the post...
As a continuous improvement practitioner, I recently faced a challenge that seemed nearly insurmountable.
Not all Japanese companies are the same. "Lean isn't easy" if you're a Japanese company. Toyota has created something special, since "Toyota culture" is not exactly the same as "Japanese culture."
The WSJ says the "model is cracking."
Do scandals involving quality and ethical lapses involving companies including those and Nissan tarnish Lean and the Toyota Production System? No. That's as silly as thinking the Wells Fargo banking scandal tarnishes Silicon Valley (although the Valley does enough to tarnish itself).
Lean can be very fragile. History shows that Lean can fall apart even in an organization that is years into a "Lean journey" with strong CEO involvement.
How is this possible? If often happens when a new CEO is brought in from the outside. In the case of the manufacturing company, Wiremold, it happened when they were acquired by a French company, Legrand.
As an aside, the team that coined the term "Lean" almost used the term "fragile," as I blogged about here.
Back in 2007, Bob Emiliani joined me for Episode #30 of the podcast. As we revisit the podcast and the new transcript I had made, what are the lessons for manufacturers or hospitals?
What's the risk that's created when new leadership takes over?
Joining me again for Episode #298 is Billy R. Taylor, for Part 2 of a discussion we started in Episode #293.
Last week, a friend texted me last week and said he couldn't wait for Part 2. He said he pulled off the road to take some notes when he listened to Part 1. So without further ado, here is Part 2.
Here, we discuss "extreme ownership," why creating ownership is more important than forcing accountability, and important lessons he's learned along the way.
Cleaning out the backlog of stuff I wanted to blog about...
Not Being Lean Lemmings; Why Best Practices Don't Yokoten; Nissan Leaders Lead the Way, After the Problems
My guest for Episode #293 of the podcast is a dynamic speaker and manufacturing leader, Billy R. Taylor. I saw him speak a few years ago at a Shingo Prize Conference and I've wanted to get him on the podcast ever since.
He's currently the Director of Commercial, Off Highway, and Support Manufacturing North America for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Over the past 20 years, he has risen from "the lowest level of the organization," up through the manufacturing leadership ranks at Goodyear, including time as a Plant Director at facilities in Oklahoma and North Carolina.
He's been "engaged in Lean" for over 15 years and he is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Billy has a BS in in Electrical Engineering from Prairie View A&M University and an MBA from Baker University.
Billy was very giving of his time and we talked for over 75 minutes, so I'm breaking this up into two parts, with Part 2 coming soon. Today, we talk about how he got started with Lean, the shift from tools- and event-based Lean to a culture focus, how to build a sense of ownership, servant leadership, employee recognition and more.
I recently read this article on the IndustryWeek website:
Whirlpool's Green Takes Aim at World Class Manufacturing
Byron Green, the vice president of manufacturing for Whirlpool's 14 factories in the U.S. and Mexico, said:
"...manufacturing was littered with companies that saw lean as a collection of tools that could be deployed for a quick win. Successful companies, he said, instead see it as a bedrock of their culture."....
Any rare event creates a number of challenges when it comes to manufacturing and supply chains. We're seeing a pretty historic "spike" in demand for products like the inexpensive glasses that allow one to safety view the eclipse (our friends in the totality zone can look at the totally-eclipsed sun safely, but that's the only time).
You could call it "supply chain challenges" or a "lack of planning on my part," but I cannot find eclipse glasses anywhere. There are MANY articles online about this widespread problem -- it's been impossible to buy "eclipse glasses" anywhere. Why is this? What could have been done?
Mark’s note: I somehow stumbled across this 2002 HBR article, Read a Plant–Fast, so I asked regular guest blogger Paul Critchley to write a post about it and his thoughts. Personally, I think it’s fair to refer to Lean transformations as…
