Category Archives: Management Articles

Strategic Deployment: How To Think Like Toyota

Posted on October 24, 2007 by John Hunter

Strategic Deployment: How To Think Like Toyota: Hoshin kanri is fundamental to Toyota’s success today, says Dennis, currently an instructor at the Lean Enterprise Institute. He says Toyota’s ability to grasp the situation, identify two or three obstacles, develop meaningful plans to address those obstacles, and deploy them “is outstanding.” Another company using strategy deployment, HNI Corp., has used a policy deployment mechanism for more than a decade. The office furniture manufacturer, an IndustryWeek Best Manufacturing Company for five consecutive … Continue reading →

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

How Curiosity Empowers Toyota

Posted on October 20, 2007 by John Hunter

How Curiosity Empowers Toyota [the broken link was removed] by Keith McFarland: As I read Magee’s book one idea kept surfacing in my mind. Throughout its history, Toyota appears to have put an emphasis on an important but oft-overlooked characteristic: Curiosity. You can trace Toyota’s institutionalized curiosity back to its founder, Sakichi Toyoda (1867-1930), who became interested in improving the effectiveness of weaving looms, and who went on to revolutionize weaving technology in Japan and secure more than 100 patents … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Danaher Expands Lean Thinking One Acquisition at a Time

Posted on September 24, 2007 by John Hunter

Sybron Focuses on Operations Nearly 18 months into becoming part of Danaher Corp., life is different at Sybron Dental Specialties Inc. “Sybron was really a sales and marketing focused organization … and operations (were) part of supporting that,” said Don Tuttle, president of specialty products for Sybron, which is moving from Orange to Anaheim next year. “What Danaher brought to us, and has been successful with, is bringing us an operations focus.” Sybron has adopted principles known as Danaher Business … Continue reading →

Posted in Investing, Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing

New Articles on Toyota Management

Posted on July 8, 2007 by John Hunter

Harvard Business Review has a new article on Toyota that both the Elegant Solutions blog (by Matthew E. May author of Elegant Solutions: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation – via: lean blog) and Got Boondoggle, have raved about. Amazing HBR Interview with Toyota President Watanabe on Elegant Solutions: Pick up the latest issue of Harvard Business Review (July/August double issue) for a real treat: a fantastic interview with Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe. This is a ground-breaking piece of journalism and … Continue reading →

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

Innovation Thinking with Christensen

Posted on June 16, 2007 by John Hunter

In my opinion Clayton Christensen offers truly insightful ideas on innovation and management. He presents the rare management advice that is not only good but also new – an incredibly rare combination. The current issue of Business Week includes an interview with him: Clayton Christensen’s Innovation Brain: Yes. The problem is when you say “listen to your customers,” your customers are only going to lead you in a direction that they want to go in. Generally, that will never lead … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Innovation, Management, Management Articles | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

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 , ,

Six Sigma at Cummins

Posted on May 11, 2007 by John Hunter

Six Sigma winning supply-chain converts [the broken link was removed] “More and more of our decisions are made after data is collected and analysis done. It’s less of a gut feel and more data-based.” On any given day, Cummins has 2,500 active Six Sigma projects involving 10,000 of its 34,000 employees, Strodtbeck said. Next year, senior managers at Cummins will be required to have Six Sigma certification before they can switch jobs or be promoted. “Six Sigma is headed toward … Continue reading →

Posted in Management Articles, Six sigma | Tagged | 1 Comment

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)

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

The Georgetown Kentucky Way

Posted on February 27, 2007 by John Hunter

The Scott County Way [the broken link was removed] by Jillian Ogawa: It seemed only natural that Toyota’s corporate culture would influence the local schools, said Superintendent Dallas Blankenship. He estimated that one in three students in the school district have one or more parents that work for either Toyota or a Toyota supplier. The school district has had several partnership programs with Toyota in Georgetown. “Simply over time, we learned a lot of practices that have helped us to … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Management Articles, Public Sector, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , ,

Talking with Toyota’s CEO

Posted on February 23, 2007 by John Hunter

Talking with Toyota’s Top Man [the broken link was removed] But there’s still more work to be done? The scariest symptom of “big-company disease” is that complacency will breed in the company. To be satisfied with becoming the top runner, and to become arrogant, is the path we must be most fearful of. There are so many challenges and issues that we need to address. Each individual [needs] to have the mentality to challenge those problems. Problems must be made … Continue reading →

Posted in Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged

Transformation and Redesign

Posted on February 23, 2007 by John Hunter

Here is an excellent article from 1999: Transformation and Redesign at the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) (pdf link) by March Laree Jacques This article describes an organizational transformation effort undertaken at the White House Communications Agency. It shares the Agency’s efforts through the period of 1992-1998, beginning with a Deming-based approach to continuous quality improvement through implementation of a total organizational redesign using systems thinking precepts. It describes the obstacles to implementing quality concepts in a high visibility, high … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Management Articles, Public Sector, Systems thinking | Tagged , , ,

More Positive Press for Toyota Management

Posted on February 19, 2007 by John Hunter

via NY Times Magazine on Toyota, a very good article: From 0 to 60 to World Domination Certainly the most obvious example of Toyota’s long view is the Prius hybrid. I don’t think so, that is an example of their medium term thinking. Personal Robot Aids, biotechnology, housing and environmental development – that is long term thinking. More on Non-Automotive Toyota. And yet deconstructing Toyota means breaking down a corporation that uses all its resources, and more than 295,000 employees … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS)

What Job Does Your Product Do?

Posted on February 19, 2007 by John Hunter

Finding the Right Job for Your Product* by Clayton M. Christensen, Scott D. Anthony, Gerald Berstell and Denise Nitterhouse (available online for a limited time only). The article has a very simple point. Customers buy your product or service to fill some specific need or desire. Knowing what need the customer is filling can help you improve your offering. Knowing what job the customer is using your product for lets you focus on improving your product for that market. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Management Articles, Process improvement | Tagged | 12 Comments

Toyota Institute for Managers

Posted on February 15, 2007 by John Hunter

The ‘Toyota Way’ Is Translated for a New Generation of Foreign Managers [the broken link was removed] “For Americans and anyone, it can be a shock to the system to be actually expected to make problems visible,” said Ms. Newton, a 38-year-old Indiana native who joined Toyota after college 15 years ago and now works at the North American headquarters in Erlanger, Ky. “Other corporate environments tend to hide problems from bosses.” … It is the Toyota Institute, charged with … Continue reading →

Posted in Management Articles, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments