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Category Archives: General

Shingijutsu Kaizen Seminar - Day 2

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

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 [...]

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Shingijutsu Kaizen Seminar - Day 1

Monday, November 5, 2007

As I mentioned in the last post, this is the third time I have been through one of these events. The first time was in 1998, then again in late 2000, now in 2008 - so it has been a while. As you may or may not know, the company that was
Shingijutsu back in [...]

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Just a question to contemplate…

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

There is a Wal*Mart here in Beijing. I haven’t been in it.
I wonder what they sell in at a Wal*Mart in China…

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Trust, Then Verify

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

This article
NPR : Mattel Recalls More China-Made Toys highlights one of the problems with doing business with an unproven supply chain.
In this case, the OEM in China had specified the correct paint to their supplier - who was a friend of the owner - but the paint supplier had given them less expensive lead [...]

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What is “Lean Thinking?”

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Welcome to The Lean Thinker.
Rather than put up an “under construction” page, I am just going to start typing.
So what is “lean thinking” anyway?
Of course it is the title of a well-known book.
To most people, the word “lean” when used in this context refers to the principles and practices of the Toyota Production System.
Toyota’s internal [...]

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