One of the advantages of having a business performance blog is I have a ready place to rant complain share my customer experiences with the air travel industry. It all started Monday. I had a flight from Seattle to Raleigh-Durham NC, connecting in Newark. It was only a two day trip, so I was traveling [...]
Happy New Year for the Year of the Dragon to all of my Chinese friends around the world. January 23 is the New Year. This message is timed to appear at midnight, Beijing time, as the fireworks are reaching a crescendo. I look at the time I spent in China as a period of great [...]
On Monday MIT hosted a webinar with Steven Spear on the topic of “Creative Experimentation.” A key theme woven throughout Spear’s work is the world today is orders of magnitude more complex than it was even 10 or 15 years ago. Where, in the past, it was feasible for a single person or small group [...]
Though I have some reservations (see below), this video shows a lot of good examples of flow for final assembly – only the assembly line is vertical, and the product is a 30 story hotel. The video actually repeats twice, once with a music sound track, then a second time with no sound. The Good [...]
Chapter 4 of The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership lays out the picture of a company where continuous improvement of operations is the primary focus of the management system. Note here that I said “focus of the management system” rather than “focus of the managers.” I believe there is a crucial difference which I will [...]
Carlos Villela’s blog lixo.org has a great story about simple solutions. I really have no idea if it is true or not – indeed, a couple of the details don’t hang together. On the other hand, I have seen for myself the kind of thinking that is described in this story. Link to full story: [...]
Chapter 3 of The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership is titled “Coach and Develop Others.” Where in Chapter 2 the authors were outlining the individual leader’s responsibility for self-development, now they are describing the environment and the process of supporting and focusing that drive. Rather than just outline the chapter, I want to dig into some [...]
This is of no particular interest to anyone but those of us who spent time working “in the yellow box.” Tonight the Megamillions jackpot is $206 million dollars. Eastman Kodak’s (at $0.69 / share) market cap is $186 million. Though Kodak is mostly known as a (former) consumer products brand, today most, if not all, [...]
This has nothing to do with lean production except at the touch point of the customer experience. Mrs. LeanThinker was looking for a replacement for her well-worn 5 quart stock pot. We were in Macy’s home department browsing. She found one she really liked, a Circulon Symmetry model, full retail $140, sale priced at $69.95. [...]
As we approach the end of the calendar year, many companies are starting to work on their Annual Operating Plans Wishes for next year. Why do I say wish? Because all too often these plans dictate what they wish would happen. Throughout the year, performance is “measured” against the plan. Positive variances are rewarded. Negative [...]