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The Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing (TIEM) plant in Columbus, Indiana has more lessons for us as we continued our tour last Friday...

I spend today, touring the Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing (TIEM), facility located in Columbus, Indiana. Although this facility h...

"Under a push system, there is little opportunity for workers to gain wisdom because they just produce according to the instructions th...

"Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before." -Shigeo Shingo

“A relentless barrage of “why’s” is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use i...

As I take my Gemba Walk at a client site, I see a virus spreading at epidemic speeds in the offices and shopfloor. The virus is a simple “Wo...

Last Wednesday night, I attend the APICS Chicago Chapter Monthly Professional Development Meeting to listen to Praveen Gupta, President of A...

I just finished reading a truly great “new” book that explores the thinking process of making improvements, “Kaizen and the Art of Creative ...

Being overwhelmed is a common feeling on the lean journey, especially as we become better at seeing all the wastes. When faced with long ka...

As we navigate our way in applying the lean principles within our own company cultures, value streams and business processes, it can sometim...

There are several great lean conferences scheduled this fall including the Lean Tools for Maintenance & Reliability Conference set for ...

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 ...