Category Archives: Lean thinking

No Excessive Senior Executive Pay at Toyota

Posted on June 23, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota Boosts Executives’ Bonuses on Record Earnings (link broken by Bloomberg has been removed – why can’t companies with huge IT budgets follow even basic web usability rules like not breaking urls?): Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest automaker by market value, will increase the total amount of executives’ bonuses by 33 percent for the year ended in March after the company posted record earnings. The automaker will pay a total of 970.5 million yen ($7.8 million) in bonuses to … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Psychology, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Why Isn’t Work Standard?

Posted on June 21, 2007 by John Hunter

Are You Really Asking? by Mark Graban The worst form would be, “Why the hell aren’t you following the standard work??? How many times do I have to emphasize that??” A better approach might be, “It appears that the standard work isn’t being followed. Why is this the case? Has something changed? Is there a problem we need to fix?” (as a legitimate question that you want the answer to). Good advice. When standard work is not followed by one … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools, Systems thinking | 5 Comments

How to Avoid Kaizen

Posted on June 13, 2007 by John Hunter

‘Disillusioned’ surgeon quits UK: In the theatre anaesthetists at the James Paget Hospital prepared the next patient while he was operating on another. He said: “I found I was wasting time between operations so I came up with this solution. Now I don’t waste any time and I have no waiting lists. … “After I won my award, I met Tony Blair. He said he would send someone from the Department of Health and that happened only after six months. … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Lean thinking, Management

Lean Progress at Label Printing Companies

Posted on June 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Continuous Improvement [the broken link was removed], an article from the Label and Narrow Web trade magazine (“for the narrow web segment of converting and printing”), is an article with some nice anecdotes of successfully applying lean thinking. “The dollar ramifications are huge. We pay bills in 10 days now because we have fewer bills to pay, and now we have discounts. We made back the money we paid last year in interest on our credit line because we have … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Quality tools | Tagged , ,

Bad Management Results in Layoffs

Posted on June 3, 2007 by John Hunter

In response to Is Laying People off Really Anti-Lean? [the broken link was removed]: Let’s say you, a Lean enthusiast, are named CEO of a mid sized manufacturing company. Let’s also assume your market has turned down and the constraint is clearly the market. Let’s also assume you need to improve operating income above all else. The final assumption is the company you inherited is not even good at mass production. They just stink at everything. If you come into … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Reduce Computer Waste

Posted on May 24, 2007 by John Hunter

High-efficiency power supplies for home computers and servers [the broken link was removed] (pdf) by Urs Hoelzle and Bill Weihl – Google: Most likely, the computer you’re using wastes 30-40% of the electrical power it consumes because it is using an inefficient power supply. It’s difficult to believe that something as basic as a power supply could be responsible for that amount of waste, but it’s true. … The opportunity for savings is immense — we estimate that if deployed … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, IT, Lean thinking | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Kaizen

Posted on May 21, 2007 by John Hunter

Great post – Do Kaizen Like Toyota [the broken link was removed]: Standardize how you solve problems… This is where following a standardized approach to problem solving based on the scientific method can help keep your kaizen efforts on track. Not to be prescriptive, but the PDCA wheel is hard to beat. Very true.

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools

Find Good Management Improvement Jobs

Posted on May 3, 2007 by John Hunter

Peter Abilla (shmula blog) is hiring a Manager for Process Improvement [the broken link was removed] to work with him at eBay. It is a great opportunity, in my opinion. Here are some highlights of what he is looking for: Experience implementing Lean and Six Sigma in transactional environments (non-manufacturing). Experience with Value-stream Mapping (current- and future-state), Lean Consumption and Lean Provisioning Experience with Lean beyond just book knowledge — I’m looking for hands-on implementation of Lean. You can explain … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Lean thinking, Process improvement, Six sigma | Tagged

Toyota, Lean, Consultants…

Posted on May 3, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota’s success pleases proponents of ‘lean’ The publicity about Toyota becoming No. 1 will create another burst of energy to lean, even though a survey by management consulting firm Bain shows that just 19% of companies that have tried it are happy with the results, says Mark Gottfredson, Bain’s head of performance improvement. More evidence that lean works will result in interest in lean – that seems true. And then those that have an interest will be disappointed in their … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Six sigma, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Standardized Work Instructions

Posted on April 29, 2007 by John Hunter

Standardized work instructions are in important part of Deming and lean manufacturing management systems. Processes need to be standardized and continually improved (kaizen). Without a documented standard process variation normally increases over time as processes drift away from the desired standard. As new ideas for improved are proposed those changes can be tested using PDSA and adopted if successful. The key is not having a document saying this is what the standard process is, the key is having a document … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Womack: Toyota Now and the Risks They Face

Posted on April 27, 2007 by John Hunter

Why Toyota Won and How Toyota Can Lose by James Womack Toyota’s great risk, the way it can lose, is that its new managers and the managers in its new suppliers will revert to the old, mass-production mentality of the companies or schools they have come from. If this happens, Toyota’s management performance will regress toward the mean. Instead of moving the whole world to embrace lean management, Toyota will become just another company. And that will be a tragic … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Lean thinking, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments

Learning Lean: A Survey of Industry Lean Needs

Posted on April 18, 2007 by John Hunter

A draft version of Learning Lean: A Survey of Industry Lean Needs [the broken link was removed] by Gene Fliedner and Kieran Mathieson is now available. This voice of the customer report is product of some of those involved in the Lean Education Academic Network. Conclusions: We studied what business practitioners think graduates need to know about Lean. Our results showed that practitioners are not concerned about specific technical skills. Instead, they want graduates to possess a systems view of … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools | Tagged ,

Lean is Not Mean

Posted on April 13, 2007 by John Hunter

Lean and Not Mean: Simple Management Most Effective [the broken link was removed]: The “pull” rather than “push” point of view first pioneered by the Japanese car manufacturers means that, in lean, everything is seen from the customer’s point of view. Production is defined by the demand from the customer instead of the push from the manufacturer. “The driver of lean is all from the customer perspective,” says Holmes. “When we talk about value, its value from the customer’s viewpoint. … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles | Tagged

The Triumph of Lean Production

Posted on April 10, 2007 by John Hunter

The triumph of lean production by Steve Schifferes Laura pulls a cord, stopping the production line – and prompting her five fellow workers on trim line three to crowd round. They soon see why it is not screwed in properly and fix the problem. “I don’t like to let something like that go,” she says. “That’s really important for people who buy our cars.” Workers at the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, pull the cord 2,000 times a week – … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Western Trailers – Lean Manufacturing

Posted on April 9, 2007 by John Hunter

Western Trailers improves efficiency – with some help [the broken link was removed]: Western Trailers President Jerry Whitehead and a couple of other senior managers went through TechHelp’s lean-manufacturing course a few years ago. Now, the company is paying for all of the approximately 50 supervisors at the 225-employee manufacturing plant to go through a new and more intense version. “It’s just good manufacturing, getting the waste out,” Panter said. There’s a need for greater efficiency, especially as companies get … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing

Metrics and Software Development

Posted on March 27, 2007 by John Hunter

Lean-based Metrics for Agile CM Environments [the broken link was removed] by Brad Appleton, Robert Cowham and Steve Berczuk: Measure Up! Don’t use metrics to measure individuals in a way that compares their performance to others or isolates the value of their contributions from the rest of the team. The last of the seven principles of Lean software development tells us to “Optimize across the whole.” When measuring value or performance, it is often better to measure at the next … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Software Development, Theory of Constraints | Tagged , , | 5 Comments