As I promised, I am going to continue to over-play the afternoon my team spent with Steven Spear. In his forthcoming book “ Chasing the Rabbit” (to be published in the fall), he profiles what is different about those companies which seem to easily be increasing their lead against competitors when there is no apparent [...]
As we near the end of 2007, most of our respective organizations are looking at what we are going to do in 2008. Part of that is usually to take a look at this year and look at where we are right now. There are a couple of ways to go about this, and I [...]
I encountered a new level of sophistication in comment spam engines today. This one actually hosts a “blog” of its own. The engine parses quotes from other blogs, posts them as comments in those blogs and links back to itself. On its host site, it looks like a “blog” but, in reality, it is nothing [...]
There is lots of “Lean Training” out there, and the quality ranges across the board. “Lean training” is a megabucks business, and anyone who can assemble a pack of PowerPoint slides and a web site is offering “lean training” out there. It is certainly a case for buyer-beware. So how do you evaluate all of [...]
If you are the “lean manufacturing expert” you probably know. But what answer do you get if you ask the question in the work area? Here is a quick diagnostic for you: Go to the shop floor and ask a supervisor, “What is your takt time?” A reply of “Huh?” is pretty self-explanatory. Either the [...]
A couple of days ago I wrote about how to host a tour. Here are some thoughts on how to get one. As always, I’d love to hear your comments and experiences. Don’t expect your hosts to change your “cement heads.” I have had requests from groups who wanted to send their “resistant managers” to [...]
When one of my operations at “a previous company” started to really show some results, they began to get a lot of requests for tours from other groups. Obviously they are not in the business of giving tours, and these requests were beginning to impact on their time. Here are some guidelines I gave them [...]
This article by Anita Tucker and Amy Edmondson at Harvard highlights a problem that is as common on the manufacturing floor as it is in the hospitals they studied: When people encounter a problem that stops their work, they work the system, get what they need, and continue their work. A lot of people call [...]