Expert Advice for Getting Things Done
- In the News, Lean Office, Sharing Best Practices
- March 29, 2010

Effective meetings require careful planning and management. Preparing for a meeting involves more than reserving a room, setting up a few chairs and plugging in the coffee. Thinking through the basics of the meeting will help cement a successful effort when the simple acronym O.A.R.R.’s is employed. O. Desired Outcomes: If a meeting is needed
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If you are simply using Lean principles to improve manufacturing processes you are sub-optimizing your business and will not resolve the bigger issues. Every business has administration processes that include engineering drawings, invoices, purchase orders, production orders, production scheduling, etc.. Therefore, developing an integrated Lean business system to support the manufacturing processes will benefit any
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The manufacturing process is not the only area of a company that incurs waste on a regular basis. Although most of us focus on the factory floor to identify the improvements needed to increase our competitiveness, many companies find abundant opportunities for waste reduction in the office. In the office environment, the 8 classic waste
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Applying Lean to office processes is an often misunderstood concept. Many efforts at lean office often fall by the wayside since measuring improvement is nearly impossible. It is important to analyze the office processes themselves to determine how to apply lean appropriately. The best way to accomplish this is to first understand how the seven
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Communication is essential for effective functioning in every part of an organization. Although marketing, production, finance, personnel, and maintenance departments may receive direction from corporate goals and objectives, communication links them together and facilitates organizational success. Meetings are a common means of communicating in organizations. Although the reasons people meet are varied, meetings generally fall
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Email has become an all too convenient way to communicate. Some much so for many of us that our inboxes are overflowing with new messages. There have been hundreds of productivity related strategies written about for dealing with email. I have even shared some of those myself. There must be a better way. In Lean
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