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Category Archives: General

Queue Management

Although my experience of late has been with a particular “red tail” airline (soon, I hear to be part of the “triangle” airline..), this applies to any service counter.
I fly a lot. As such, I find myself in front of the Sea-Tac airline counter a lot. So much that I recognize most of the people [...]

More Short Term Thinking

When pickup sales dived, automakers changed plans - Yahoo News
A couple of interesting things about this article. The first is that there is no mention of the other major player in this market - Toyota. Maybe that is because, inexplicably, they manage to continue to make a profit, and are executing their plans.
Sure, their big [...]

Keep it Simple

We have created an entire generation (or two) of managers who are very savvy with cost accounting models. They know exactly how “costs” and “profits” are calculated, and they know exactly what inputs to manipulate in order to make the numbers as good as possible.
They know, for example, how “inventory turns” are calculated, that “average [...]

Toyota falls short of GM in global sales - Yahoo News… So What?

Toyota falls short of GM in global sales - Yahoo News
This news article is interesting, because it totally misses the point.
First, in the fine print, Toyota fell short of GM, yes, by about 3,000 total cars out of about 9.3 million cars. So, in my book, that is a tie because +/- a couple of [...]

Thoughts from Nagoya: Japan, Toyota, Shingijutsu

This last road trip was 3+ weeks in China, then a week at the
Shingijutsu seminar in Japan. It was a little fortunate for me since I was the only member on our team who was not suffering from 8-12 hours of jet lag.
As I noted at the start of the Shingijutsu Seminar series, Shingijutsu [...]

Toyota Museum Display: Universal Design

One of the displays in the Toyota Museum in Nagoya was an exhibition on “Universal Design.” This exhibition runs through December 2.
Rather than trying to interpret and articulate the concepts, I just want to list some of the key words. I think they stand for themselves, and provide a good baseline for evaluating the design [...]

Shingijutsu Kaizen Seminar - Day 4

Today was the final report-out. In these events this is quite ritualized. Each team has a takt time, and must present a standard work combination sheet that shows the flow of their presentation. Everyone must participate in the presentation. There is a general set sequence for what is shown first, second, third, etc.
Because we only [...]

Shingijutsu Gemba Kaizen Seminar - Kaizen Key Points

The last post was a bit of a narrative, and I think it is appropriate to call out a few key points and express them succinctly.

The theoretical stuff all emphasizes “initial process stability” as a requirement for progress. Ohno said “without standards there can be no kaizen.” Mark says - “Without parts there can [...]

Shingijutsu Kaizen Seminar - Day 3

Yesterday I told you the plan for today. Here is what really happened.
We got the even pitch going for a while. I was at the front of the line releasing units down the line as the pre-build Team Member was done with them. I was watching distance (since distance = time on a moving line). [...]

Shingijutsu Kaizen Seminar - Day 2

The day today ended about 10 pm. It is 11 pm now as I write this, which translates to 7 am Pacific Time. I will leave the remaining time zones as an exercise for my European readers. (Hello, Corrie!)
Once we hit the shop floor today we were in “understand the current situation” mode. It turned [...]