by Dan Markovitz Whew! Just in case you panicked at the thought of not having access to email on your upcoming flight to Slippery Rock, JetBlue has come to the rescue with in-flight internet access. You’ll never again have to…
by Dan Markovitz Without realizing it, James B. Stewart, the SmartMoney columnist for the Wall Street Journal, touched on the value and power of hansei (reflection) in yesterday’s piece (available for free here). Commenting on the recent ouster of Merrill…
By Dan Markovitz Mark posted yesterday about the relative leanness of light rail vs. buses. He pointed out that a rail line probably has more capacity, but it’s very much a fixed asset, a “monument” if you will. Buses are…
by Dan Markovitz The latest issue of Strategy+Business, Booz Allen Hamilton’s business journal, features an article on cost cutting. Ordinarily, simple cost cutting flies in the face of real lean, but in this case, the authors’ recommendations incorporate an important…
by Dan Markovitz This blog has commented (here and here) on the WSJ’s rush to predict the folly of just-in-time manufacturing in the wake of the earthquake last week that crippled Japanese auto production. (“Blame it on kanban, the just-in-time…
By Dan Markovitz Last week the Wall Street Journal interviewed George David, the CEO of United Technologies. Though the conversation didn’t address his views on lean, he decries all forms of waste: You can’t walk through life with a trained…
By Dan Markovitz There’s been some confusion over my recent post criticizing the Business Week article on Toyota’s “frugality.” I do not believe that Toyota is frugal (read: “cheap”). Rather, I believe that the company is simply focused on value.…
By Dan Markovitz BusinessWeek online joined the rest of the media in noting that Toyota just passed GM as the global leader in auto sales this quarter. The article covers all the usual points, and to its credit, does add…
By Dan MarkovitzBack in October, Lifehacker ran a lengthy article on “personal kaizen.” The thrust of the piece is how we can improve our lives by adopting the kaizen approach of the TPS and applying it to our own work…
The New York Times ran an article this weekend exposing the myth of multitasking. Despite the common belief that we have to multi-task to get our work done, and despite the presence of technology that encourages us to do more…
By Dan Markovitz Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal ran an article explaining that employees are more likely to embrace changes when they’re fully informed of the rationale behind those changes. What?!?!?!? You mean that performance relates to worker involvement?!?!? Shocking!!! Foremost…
By Dan Markovitz Sometimes it’s hard to spot errors in an office, much less error-proof the workspace. With so many value streams running through each knowledge worker, and so much of the value being intangible and invisible, error-proofing is tricky.…
