Tips for Lean Managers Archives | Page 18 of 22

One Sign of a Lean Culture: Kaizen or Get Out

By Jon Miller - September 22nd, 2006

I had lunch yesterday with a local client of ours. He owns a small factory that employs about 30 people. The products they make are fairly simple and the processes are not complex. They have made some big changes in the factory layout

What Experience Do You Have in My Industry?

By Jon Miller - September 12th, 2006

“What experience do you have in my industry?” I heard this again today for the nth time, with n being a number sufficiently large such that n x $1 would buy a nice lunch for everyone who reads this today. The “industr

Hoshin is 5S for Your Head

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2006

Busy, busy days. It’s days like these that it becomes more important to avoid working harder, longer and instead take a precious moment out of your day to examine whether what you are doing is really adding value towards the ulti

Workflow Design: Horizontal Handling vs. Vertical Handling

By Jon Miller - September 4th, 2006

Here’s a follow up to a previous post of the one point lesson on operational availability vs. rate of operation. A reader pointed out that pictures and not just words would be helpful, so in answer to a related question about multi-p

That’s What I Call Cosmic Irony

By Jon Miller - August 22nd, 2006

What do you call it when a meeting of the Lean manufacturing leaders from around the globe gets cancelled at the last minute by the senior leadership of the organization, citing “business needs”? I call it cosmic irony. One of our

I Mean It. Be Dissatisfied in the Work You Do

By Jon Miller - August 12th, 2006

Reader Jeff made a good point in a comment he left a end of one of the articles here at Panta Rei. I suggested replacing “Take pride in the work you do” signs in the workplace with “Be dissatisfied in the work you do&

Error Proof the Pokayoke to Build in Quality

By Jon Miller - July 26th, 2006

In order to have a just in time production system function properly you need to work towards zero defects and build in quality to every process. Otherwise the lack of extra buffer inventory will shut down the material flow when a defec

Getting in the Habit of Change

By Jon Miller - July 24th, 2006

People often say that sustaining the gains of kaizen and Lean manufacturing is the hardest thing. How well you sustain kaizen is really about how well you adapt to change. Kaizen and Lean manufacturing are not “one time and done&

Kaizen Secrets of the Toyota Mind

By Jon Miller - July 16th, 2006

There have been many books on the bestseller list with variations on the theme of “how to become a millionaire”. A fellow named T. Harv Eker rolled through Seattle a few years ago and gave a free seminar on the subject. It seemed l

Spending Money to Hinder Leadership

By Jon Miller - July 7th, 2006

I recently went to Japan with a group of directors from an aerospace company to see Toyota and other leaders of Lean. One of the results of the trip was that the director or engineering really saw the waste walls cause in the office an

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