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115,000 Miles in Your Lifetime0
- In the News
- July 29, 2009
I heard an interesting statistic today that makes you think about waste and it’s compounding factor.How many miles does the average person walk in their lifetime?Well, it turns out to be about 115,000 miles or more than 4 trips around the world. (You can confirm by a quick search on the Internet.)Here is the math
READ MOREManufacturing is the Answer to the Economy Just not a Career0
- In the News
- July 27, 2009
A recent survey by Deloitte LLP and The Manufacturing Institute shows that Americans view manufacturing as the most important industry for a strong national economy. Americans also believe that a strong manufacturing base is important to our standard of living and national security. Manufacturing ranked higher than technology, energy, healthcare, financial services, retail, and communications
READ MOREIs Your ERP System Working For You?0
- Lean Management
- July 25, 2009
I have never really been an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or a Material Resource Planning (MRP) fan since they are really push systems based on sales forecasts. Some recent failures of our system have made me re-visit Lean vs ERP solutions. With traditional manufacturing resource planning (MRP II, the planning engine in most ERP systems
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Lean Values Explained by Amazon CEO0
- In the News, Lean in Practice
- July 24, 2009
In the news yesterday Amazon.com announced its intention to acquire Zappos.com. Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com says this acquisition brings together two companies who share common values. Thanks to my fellow bloggers Ron Pereira and John Hunter for sharing these values with us. In a web video by Jeff Bezos to the Zappos
READ MOREThe Rudolph Factor and the Eighth Waste0
- Lean Basics, Lean Management
- July 23, 2009
In the Lean community the eighth and often hidden waste is unutilized talent or resources. I especially like to highlight this since human capital is the vital engine needed to support a business. It is this talent where innovation and continuous improvement comes from. The challenge for all business management is learning how to tap
READ MOREDoofus and Leanie – A Lean Style Cartoon0
- Lean Basics, Lean Resources
- July 21, 2009
Mark Graban introduced a new “Lean Style” cartoon series called “Doofus and Leanie“. Many in the lean community know Mark as the founder of http://www.leanblog.org/ and a shingo prize winning author for Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction published in 2008. Now he is adding to his collection of literary works a
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In Search of Lost Time0
- Lean Basics, Lean Management
- July 18, 2009
In all organizations meetings are necessary and natural to conduct business. As in all processes there are value added and non value added actions. These non value added actions can be very costly to companies and they don’t even “see” it. We have all been to meetings that don’t start on-time because people are late
READ MOREHow to Save Time with Email0
- Lean Office, Sharing Best Practices
- July 17, 2009
In our high tech society people love to stay connected and it is so easy to do so with email, IM, wireless connectivity, and handheld devices. Email is part of all businesses and replaces many other methods of communication. Email has become a wasteful distraction costing company’s lost productivity with all the interruptions. In a
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Stop Fighting Fires0
- Lean Management
- July 13, 2009
Unfortunately, a far too common management style in many companies is the reactionary style commonly referred to as fire fighting. But fire fighting consumes an organization’s resources and damages productivity. Fire fighting derives from what seems like a reasonable set of rules–investigate all problems, for example, or assign the most difficult problems to your best
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