Tag Wagner

Southwest Airlines and the Flying Big Three

Southwest. Way Southwest. – NY Times Jeff Bailey at the New York Times wrote a great article about Southwest Airlines and their legendary approach to the key lean principle of respect for people. After talking about Southwest’s propensity for cross-dressing…

Book Review: Boeing Versus Airbus

Review by Andy Wagner: Name of the Book: Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business Author: John Newhouse Publication Date: 2007 Book Description: Boeing Versus Airbus is not exactly a lean book, but it…

Time for Value Added Engineering

Ford Adopts Focus Time – Detroit News By Andy Wagner: I have blogged before on the inefficiency of multi-tasking and the virtues of more single-piece flow in the engineering environment. Judging by this article, it looks like somebody at Ford…

Always Room For Improvement

I had an internal factory tour that reminded me of Mark’s recent blog on the Not So Lean Factory Tour. The plant was not nearly the horror story Mark experienced, and in fact, it was one of best examples of…

Boeing’s Lean Bet

Kevin Meyer at Evolving Excellence commented the other day on the Wall Street Journal article about Boeing’s recent supply chain challenges. I’d like to add to what he said from a broader perspective on the industry, and how I think…

Single-Piece Flow in Engineering

Monday afternoon, I have the honor of being part of a meeting to discuss “Project Executio.” The bosses complain that engineers in our department aren’t getting our cost reduction effort closed out fast enough. It’s true. We aren’t making fast…

Lean for High Takt Times

Mark’s Note: After some of my adventures in blogging about lean in aerospace, I got a volunteer to add some perspectives from that industry. Thanks to Andy for joining up and I look forward to his contributions. Click on his…