Toyota is in the news daily for its safety-related recalls. It’s sad… no, tragic. How could a company’s quality reputation be diluted so quickly? The pundits are saying that it will take many ... [Read More]
I received pair of questions about lean logistics over the past few weeks that prompted this article. The questions were “What is the milk run method?” and “What is the role of the water ... [Read More]
In July of 2008, I stepped out of an engineering leadership role and into an operational role. The transition was exciting and overwhelming. While I had been in and around manufacturing for a ... [Read More]
A management system is the framework of processes and procedures used to ensure that an organization can fulfill all tasks required to achieve its objectives. A lean management system consists of ... [Read More]
The following words of an anonymous poet as he (or she) immortalized the lessons from Deming’s funnel experiment.
“Tamper, tamper is the game, try to make all the same. Squeak and ... [Read More]
“Our corporate mission is to deliver the ‘Best Value in Energy and Related Services,’” according to a large Midwestern electric and gas utility company. This is a mission statement, which ... [Read More]
The cross-functional team at Piedmont Newnan was made up of employees that deal with the process daily. For this process improvement project, they focused on case carts, ... [Read More]
How many times has this happened to you? You’re leading a Six Sigma project on a transactional process of some kind, something not directly tied to manufacturing or measurement of product ... [Read More]
Toyota’s legendary lean processes didn’t come out of nowhere. They were forged by the fire of urgency in post-World War II Japan when resources were scarce. Toyota innovated—and continued to ... [Read More]
One of my clients, a wireless business-to-business (B2B) telecom company, was experiencing a significant problem in their call center. They were absolutely inundated with calls—most of them ... [Read More]
