Got Boondoggle?

Today is Earth Day 2008. Maybe it’s only me but it seems that this year it’s gotten substantially more press coverage than in Earth Days pa...

In almost 100% of all business improvement books, the topic of communication is always considered a key factor to success. I am sure that ma...

Go to gemba and look at your dock area material handling process. Follow your material handlers around the plant. Go to your warehouse area...

On May 20-22, 2008, Noria and Reliable Plant Magazine will be hosting their Lean Manufacturing 2008 Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. T...

One of the hardest lessons to learn and follow on the lean journey is where to apply improvement efforts. For many of us, we can easily und...

This morning, the CEO’s of Batesville Casket Company and Hill-Rom Company rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange to signal the...

BOHICA is not a new Japanese word used in lean manufacturing and it is not a cynical Dilbert-ism although it could be. For those with a mili...

There is a rising level of awareness of global warming and other environmental concerns within our society today. As more information is sh...

I attended a report out by several newly certified six sigma green belts from the Pratt Corporation in Indianapolis, Indiana where two of th...

When faced with making improvements like the lean challenge of minimizing the floor space used by a process, we should proceed with careful ...

One of the challenges in kaizen is getting people to see beyond their perceived boundaries to what is possible. One example is using right s...

As I guided our kaizen team this week focusing on productivity and 5S of a weld cell, an important lesson from day one training was reinforc...

One of the keys for success for kaizen events is planning. All the tasks of setting the proper scope, selecting a good mix of team members, ...

Over the past few weeks my daily standard work has been simplified: kaizen, eat, sleep. The results have been fantastic along with great lea...

For those of you unfamiliar with classic American TV shows, between 1964-1967, a popular comedy show called “Gilligan’s Island” aired. The s...

This past weekend, Tiger Woods added another notch to his victory column winning the Buick Invitational. He is currently the world’s No. 1 p...

There is an old Indian saying I learned back in my Boy Scout days that goes, “White man build big fire, sit way back…Indian build little fir...

When you look at a painting or a sculpture, what do you see? Some art is simple and we see it for what it is, like a landscape or a person f...

This is a common question that I get asked and an issue that we all deal with on our lean journey. We work hard at identifying opportunitie...

It was officially announced today that our Vicksburg Plant located in Vicksburg, Mississippi was named one of Industry Weeks Top 10 Plants i...