Got Boondoggle?

The best winning strategy for the future does not stop at our plant walls. Even if we are the most efficient manufacturer in our industry w...

There is no doubt that I am big fan of the Toyota Production System and the resulting Toyota vehicle product line. Despite these positive f...

On our lean journey, we sometimes overlook the simple and obvious wastes. Take meetings for example. How many of your meetings start and end...

"If your want one year of prosperity, grow seeds. If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want one hundred years of pr...

As I pulled into the company parking lot, a steady rain fell from the morning clouds. I made my way down the hall, turned on the office ligh...

With my last post on andon lights , I pointed out the seemingly widespread misuse of this simple visual tool. More importantly, we don’t sto...

After visiting and working at numerous manufacturing plants across the United States this past year, I have come to the conclusion that we r...

Thanks to the lean thinking approach of Mark Graban from the Lean Blog , there is a new 5 Why type lean survey under experimentation to addr...

According to the 2007 State of Lean Survey conducted by the Lean Enterprise Institute, the number one ranked obstacle to implementing lean ...

As I pointed out in a previous post, lean grade inflation has found its way into plant assessments like 5S Audits. To address this issue, tr...

I just read an outstanding piece in the latest Harvard Business Review (July/August 2007), “Lessons From Toyota’s Long Drive”, an interview ...

In today's Wall Street Journal, I read an interesting article - Toyota's New U.S. Plan: Stop Building Factories . You can read it on...

Here is a problem I discovered on my Gemba walk. After I noticed a damaged box with components spilled on the floor, I called the first empl...

Look at handoffs in your process for waste and hidden opportunities for improvement. Most obvious of these wastes are piles of inventory eas...

While on the road last week, I discovered a cool visual management aid at the Holiday Inn Express in Dundee, Michigan. It certainly catches ...

No matter how well you plan, prepare and perform, sometimes things just happen that you do not expect. Sometimes these things are painful an...

Past headlines have brought to light a suspected phenomenon in our High Schools and Colleges in the United States where it is believed that ...

The kaizen formula of Aha! + Eureka! =Wow! is just part of larger pattern, or a continuous improvement cycle, discovered on my lean improvem...

Aha! + Eureka! = Wow!

There seems to be a swell of support against 5S activities which is certainly not a new phenomenon. The backlash against any attempts to org...