Lean Manufacturing Archives | Page 48 of 54

For Built-In Quality, Simple Is Best

By Jon Miller - March 7th, 2006

As part of our Lean manufacturing benchmarking trip we visited a bus manufacturing plant in Japan with a group of aerospace executives on February 27, 2006. We spent 6 hours observing their Lean manufacturing operation in action. We as

How Exactly Does Toyota Put People on the Balance Sheet as Assets?

By Jon Miller - March 2nd, 2006

Toyota executives are heard to say that “we put people on the balance sheet as assets” but I had taken this figuratively not literally (philosophy rather than accounting practice). At the moment I have no concrete evidence

Put People on the Balance Sheet

By Jon Miller - February 28th, 2006

According to a Trackback at the end of Bill Waddell’s latest inspiring post full of big ideas, there are only 27 hits on Google for the phrase Put People on the Balance Sheet. We’ll I’m adding #28. Thanks to the Flyin

Work Hard, Complain, and Do Kaizen

By Jon Miller - February 23rd, 2006

The Director of Human Resources for one of our clients had an “ah-ha” moment about her role in supporting Lean manufacturing and how to combine kaizen with respect for people. After we benchmarked a company effectively involving ev

Minding the Length of a Toy Duck’s Neck

By Jon Miller - January 28th, 2006

On the front page of the January 27, 2006 Wall Street Journal there was an article titled In Tot TV Shows, Money is in the Toys. I’m always delighted to find lessons about Lean manufacturing in unexpected places. The article told

We Don’t Need a Big Culture Change at Ford. No Wait, Yes We Do!

By Jon Miller - January 23rd, 2006

The Ford Motor Company presented their restructuring plan called “The Way Forward” today. Ford is planning to shake things up. In CEO Bill Ford, Jr’s words: “Here is what we will not stand for: incremental chang

The “Lean Manufacturing Push” at Chrysler

By Jon Miller - January 22nd, 2006

Selling Lean manufacturing to the world isn’t easy with headlines like Chrysler Cuts Trade Workers: In Lean Manufacturing Push, Automaker Also is Reducing Number of Job Classifications at Plants. Chrysler must be getting public r

How to Give Lean Manufacturing a Bad Name

By Jon Miller - January 18th, 2006

One way that is almost guaranteed to stop a Lean manufacturing effort in its tracks is for management to announce that Lean manufacturing will be used to eliminate jobs. It’s hard to believe that anyone still does this, but the p

Gemba’s Consulting Work Featured on NIST Website

By Jon Miller - January 18th, 2006

Gemba’s consulting work at Blue Diamond Manufacturing, a division of DeLaval, has been featured at the national website of NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). Here’s a quote by Ken Johnson, the General Ma

Pandemic Preparation: Just in Time or Just in Case?

By Jon Miller - January 16th, 2006

In a January 12, 2006 Wall Street Journal article (which you can also find on the Pittsburgh Post Gazette) titled Just-in-Time Inventories Make U.S. Vulnerable in a Pandemic raises a question that is very common to organizations first

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