Got Boondoggle?

In the movie, A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson playing the role of a hard-core, old-school, tough-as-nails Marine Colonel delivers the famous ...

I strongly believe that one of the keys to a successful lean transformation is management involvement, not just management support. Involvem...

Many times in manufacturing career I have struggled in dealing with the dilemma of producing the cats and dogs. The cats and dogs are those ...

As we embrace many of the lean ways including shifting to a more visual management approach, be careful not to turn a good visual management...

The SMED system which stands for Single Minute Exchange of Dies, developed by Shigeo Shingo and published in his 1985 book, guides us to ach...

There are many types of kanban. A kanban could be cards, bins, containers, trays, carts, spots on the floor, golf balls, ping pong balls ju...

James Marsh, Senior Researcher at Sheffield Hallam University is requesting our help in the lean community on his research project exploring...

If you are looking to boost your output or increase your responsiveness to customer demand but want to avoid the significant capital costs o...

It is with mixed emotion that I am officially leaving my position as Lean Sensei at Batesville Casket Company. I am happy with all that we a...

Knowing is better than guessing. Seeing is better than hearing. Doing is better than talking.

One focus on the lean manufacturing path is the pursuit of perfection. When this point is brought up, many people don’t believe perfection i...

After reading Mark Graban’s post, 10 Things I Wish Lean Practitioners Wouldn’t Say in 2010 on his Lean Blog , I thought it was interesting ...

Be Prepared is the motto of the Boy Scouts and most likely the simplest method for productivity improvement. Lord Robert Baden-Powell, found...

One of the principles of the lean approach is long term thinking with focus on adding value to our customers and society. We are taught to ...

I just finished reading an inspirational book “Play to Win, The Make a Difference Gameplan” by Tom Karbowski , a co-worker from Southern Ind...

I recently stumbled across a new lean blog called “Lean is Good” posted by Bruce Baker with added insights from Bryan Zeigler and Scott Mar...

What seems like an easy, simple question may turn out rather difficult and complex to answer. If we are to embrace the lean approach isn’t ...

From the popular comedy show, The Office, Dwight give us some potential poka yoke advice on mistake proofing, also known as idiot proofing f...

I am quite honored and excited to once again host a session of the management improvement carnival started by John Hunter through his awesom...

Originally, I was not going to post about this issue but the more I thought about it, the more we can learn from it. The issue deals with la...