The Management Improvement Carnival #27 (Best of 2007) has been posted by Ron Pereira. Highlights include:

• 10 Common Misconceptions About Lean Manufacturing: 1. Lean production = volume production. In Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management he suggested that the Toyota system was ideally suited for low volume production, and not as well suited for the higher volume production…
• L.A.M.E. = Lean As Misguidedly Executed: We need a phrase that describes these “bad” or misguided attempts at Lean, things that give Lean a bad name. How about: LAME: “Lean” As Misguidedly Executed.
• Reacting to Visual Cues: The Toyota Production System makes effective use of visual cues to mark location in time and space, boundaries, and to answer the question “How am I doing” in a production setting.
• Dabbawallas, UPS, and FedEx: Mumbai residents rely on an intricately organized, labor-intensive operation that puts some automated high-tech systems to shame.