This is Part 3 of a multi-part review. Part 1 is here. Before I get into it, I will break the rules of blogging and acknowledge a time gap here. I did finish the book shortly after I wrote part 2, in fact, I didn’t want to put it down. So now I am going [...]
Yesterday’s post on vendor managed inventory touched on a couple of things about “lean” and reducing inventory that I’d like to explore further. All too often “inventory reduction” has been a way to “sell” a lean manufacturing implementation. The reduction of inventory becomes the objective. While this isn’t inherently a bad thing, it is all [...]
The meaning of this famous quote, attributed to Taiichi Ohno, becomes much more clear in the context of “ Chasing the Rabbit” and previous published research by Steven Spear. Spear’s research goes beyond Toyota’s process and delves into a more general question about how any organization playing in an otherwise level field can continuously out [...]
More than one organization gets stuck in kaizen events. By "stuck" I mean that kaizen events are the only mechanism for improvement. A good indicator of this is "waiting for a kaizen event" to make an improvement that everyone agrees should be made. At the same time, I see leaders who understand that these kinds [...]
Bloodletting: Why Controlled Experiments are Important I want to start this post with the last paragraph of this article: Next time someone tells you that they are sure their idea will work, consider running a prototype in a controlled experiment, and make a data driven decision! Now – the article itself is in the context [...]
How does kaizen actually show up on the bottom line? This is a question that gets asked a lot, and honestly, we owe the asker a better answer than “it just does, trust us.” (Even though this is true.) Here’s my thinking – it shows up two ways. One is intangible. By that I mean [...]
How can some companies not only survive, but thrive when operating in “high cost labor” areas, while others are struggling even as they are busy chasing the lowest possible costs? I would like to suggest that one key difference is the attitude toward people. On the one hand is the “people as cost” model. This [...]
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 [...]
I guess four months into this, it kind of makes sense to talk about waste. But rather than repeat what everyone else says, maybe I can contribute to the dialog and toss out some things to think about. Identifying / Seeing Waste. Taiichi Ohno had 7 wastes, a few publications say 7+1. I have always [...]
Operations that work to the “push” are well known for complex and interdependent problems. What looks like a problem in one area often has causes, or parts of causes, in other areas. Quality problems, delivery problems (late, too much, too little, wrong stuff), sub-optimizing attempts to reduce local cost.. all of these things propagate unchecked [...]