Last week, my dad pointed out this grammar quiz on the Wall Street Journal website (as part of the article “This Embarrasses You and I*: Grammar Gaffes Invade the Office in an Age of Informal Email, Texting and Twitter.” We…
In a recurring feature, here are links to some more articles I’ve read recently that might be of interest: Luxury car program brings cancer patients to treatment in style (KVUE-TV, Austin) – a great non-profit effort started by a former…
Last week, an article in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye: “The Robots Are Coming to Hospitals: A New Breed of Blue-Collar Robots is Handling the Dirty Work, Transporting Linens and Laundry.” My immediate short response was to tweet…
Last Thursday’s Journal had a story titled “How to Be a Better Boss? Spend Time on the Front Lines.” The article talks about senior leaders going to see work being done at the front lines. Does this have to be…
It’s always great to see stories in the major media outlets about engaging front-line staff in improvement ideas. Recently, we had a piece in USA Today that I blogged about and now we have one in the Wall St. Journal…
On Friday, there was yet another Wall Street Journal article about Lean (fixating as they always do on the “Just In Time” component). The article titled “For Lean Factories, No Buffer” yet again takes an outdated 1980s view that Lean…
In the news yesterday, a General Motors recall over what could be just one isolated steering wheel problem in an Ohio-built Chevrolet (don’t call it Chevy) Cruze. Most news stories, like this one, about the recall just mention that one…
TL;DR — GM vs. Toyota After the Japan Earthquake General Motors (GM) Toyota Bottom line:This wasn’t a failure of JIT or Lean. It was a leadership choice. Toyota showed that real Lean is about how you treat people when work…
Those of you who know my background know that I spent the first 10 years of my career working in various manufacturing sectors (including GM, Dell, and Honeywell). I moved into healthcare in 2005, part of the wave of people…
It’s Super Bowl week in the U.S., which is probably even obvious to many readers from outside of North America. As we watch the game, most fans will be focused mainly on the team outcome, as opposed to focusing on…
I’m finally blogging about a Wall Street Journal article from just before Christmas – it’s still a generally interesting topic, I think. The article was “Holiday Help: People vs. Robots” It compares the labor and productivity strategies of two retailers…
For a more traditional approach to this topic, check out this alternative post, “Real Lean at Starbucks or Tayloristic Industrial Engineering?“. Below is the more creative approach to addressing yesterday’s WSJ article about Lean at Starbucks. Read the WSJ article…