Because I have a bit of an uncommon working situation, it can be interesting when people ask what I do for a living. I can say I own a business, that I’m a consultant, that I’m an author, that I do corporate training, or that I run an online store. Read more…
Let me list three of my favorite things: Bacon (and other assorted breakfast meats) Kaizen Rockets So imagine my delight when a friend on Facebook posted one of the most brilliant minds of our time combining all three. Now I will warn you. This man’s intellect is so advanced that Read more…
I thought I’d try a little exercise. I wanted to see how easy it would be for me to make a short Lean library starter list for new shop floor managers in a Lean company. There’s a lot of great Lean books out there, so the task proved harder than Read more…
My perception from personal observation, feedback from you, and copious amount of reading is that Lean is perceived as a tool to be used in larger companies. Sure, it is put in place for small processes within those businesses, but there is little information specifically geared to using Lean in Read more…
My dad lives in the Chicago area. His house has been buried in multiple snowstorms over the course of this winter. A few weeks back, he was driving somewhere during the time when the kids in his neighborhood were walking to school. Along one of the arterials, there are no Read more…
We’ve got a special treat for today’s podcast. A few weeks back, I had a chance to interview Mike Osterling. He’s one of the co-authors of The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service and Technical Environments, owns his own consulting business, is a frequent speaker at organizations Read more…
I try to live by the words I preach. I keep my office reasonably well 5S’ed, so I seldom have to look more than a few seconds to find something. I rarely miss deadlines, and hardly ever make promises that I can’t keep (with the exception of two podcasts I Read more…
I do a lot of channel surfing, and frequently come across shows that teach Lean lessons, albeit without really knowing they are doing it. So here’s my list of the TV shows that preach Lean… Kitchen Nightmares. Chef Gordon Ramsay comes in and overhauls a restaurant in a very short Read more…
Imagine two call centers. One is ‘traditional’. That means that the call sequencing goes to the least busy operator or the first available operator. (Those options area actually listed on a website for a major call center system manufacturer). The other is a Lean call center. They always have the Read more…
Let’s break out a little high school math and talk about a difference between shop floor cycle times and the time it takes to do work in the office. Cycle time on the shop floor is fairly straightforward. There is a time that a task takes, plus a little more Read more…
I place a lot of value on integrity. I was always pretty honest growing up. I once returned a pair of Susan B. Anthony dollars to a lunch lady when she gave them to me instead of two quarters. And my parents had a knack for finding all sorts of Read more…
In order to keep the football season alive just a touch longer, I wanted to talk about the “Madden Curse”. This is the theory that any player that graces the cover of the video game’s box will have a sub-par season the following year.