The Lean Enterprise Institute has recently published Kaizen Express, an overview of the classic characteristics of “lean manufacturing” and, by implication, the Toyota Production System. As I set out to review the book, I found myself heading in two directions. One is the content of the book itself. Over the years, there have been a [...]
A frequent topic in the lean.org forums is some version of “what is the difference between lean and ____” where the blank is one of the industry buzzwords. Some of the common ones are various prefixes to “Sigma.” Others are old standards such as TQM, SPC, TOC, etc. These discussions are always interesting as the [...]
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 [...]