I think Yahoo's and Best Buy's policies add waste to their operation. When you ask an employee to drive to a workplace to do something that can be done over the phone or Internet, you are asking that employee to spend time for which he or she is not paid, along with expensive gasoline. This effectively lowers the employee's salary.

There are, of course, things that require a person's physical presence, such as manufacturing a part or performing a quality audit. "Go and see" is important in a workplace, although it is conceivable that even this could be done to some degree by videocameras in gemba.

Surgeons can, in fact, operate remotely via cameras and robot, which means a surgeon does not have to waste his valuable time by commuting to the hospital in question.

We should, therefore, be seeking to eliminate all forms of waste, and physical commuting is such, wherever possible. Collaboration of the type that Yahoo wants can be done on the Internet, e.g. through discussion forums that allow asynchronous communication.

Reshoring and Offshoring are just like tidal waves: one decade the latter, the next decade the former. Although socially significant they are, decisions on where to go to make one's products are all too often emotional, much more than rational or based of facts. I don't know of the Cincinnati Reds, I apologize, I know more of New Zealand's All Blacks; but I know of 30,000 people laid off by FIAT in Turin city for offshoring its plants to Poland and Serbia. And - look at how the World turns "round" - the FIAT Panda city car production costs are far higher in those alleged low cost Countries than in FIAT home country, that is, Italy. I watched "the" movie on the Enrico Mattei's killing, last night: he was an inshorer, but the offshorers assassinated him. Be Economy blessed?  Thank you.