“Experience by itself teaches nothing… Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning.” –W. Edwards Deming, The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education – 2nd Edition The field of psychology, it seems, shares an issue with the field of operations management. Wilson [...]
Note – this post was written pretty much simultaneously with a post on the lean.org forum. Mike Rother has put up a compelling presentation that highlights a long-standing misunderstanding about the purpose of “standards.” Some time ago, a (well-meaning) author or consultant constructed a graphic that shows the PDCA wheel rolling up the incline of [...]
One of the problems facing all of us – from pundits to practitioners alike – is “too much information.” We look at a complex state, like the way Toyota operates, try do describe it in great detail, break it down, build models, and say “OK, make it look like that.” So one of the most [...]
I have been touting Chip and Dan Heath’s book Switch for some time now, so it I thought I ought to actually write about why. If you are in the role of a “change agent” this book is your manual. Up to this point, the bible for “organizational change” has been John P. Kotter’s book [...]
In the Production Preparation Process (3P) we use the term “moonshine” to refer to process of rapid prototyping and iteration. The team creates concepts and tries them out quickly and cheaply in order to learn more. Today we have some really powerful tools available to do this. One of them is Lego Technic. It is [...]
Continuing on a supply-chain theme from Doing Outsourcing Right and Don’t Lose How To Make Things, I found this Reuters article carried on MSNBC interesting. Surging China costs forces some U.S. manufacturing companies back home Like a lot of popular press articles, the title and even the lead kind of miss the point. They [...]
Nancy Bruner blogs on Word | Rap. Her first (and as of this writing, only) post is titled Do They Really Want a Change Agent. Since most lean practitioners are, rightly or wrongly, expected to be change agents, the points she makes caught my eye. The harsh reality of this is summed up in her [...]
Mike Rother has made some significant revisions to his Improvement Kata Handbook. The role of “True North” is much better defined as the context of improvement. He has filled in a lot of valuable detail for “Grasping the Current Condition” and setting Target Conditions. The structure for the PDCA cycle has been tightened up. [...]
PC posted a really interesting bit of visual control history in the forums. Click on the link to read his whole post, there is a second part about lack of visual controls. In a recently aired episode of Showdown: Air Combat the host, a USAF fighter jock, asked about a series of colored stripes painted on [...]
Mike Rother forwarded this link to an article by Bruce Hamilton in Quality Digest with the observation that “the lean ship may be turning.” The key point is that people learn what they practice. And if you practice kaizen every day, you learn kaizen. But if you practice something else every day, you learn that. [...]