Jason Furness
In a previous article I wrote about the reasons why so many lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and other improvement programs fail. In this article I’m going to expand on reason No. 1: the Academy...
Ryan E. Day
Manufacturing activities have strong ties to economic prosperity. Deloitte’s 2016 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index states, “Nations and companies are striving to advance to the next...
Willie L. Carter
What differentiates a lean-thinking organization from a traditional one? Basically, the lean-thinking organization is grounded in the answers to two simple questions: “What do my customers value?”...
Taran March @ Quality Digest
What must it be like to be Elon Musk? Here’s a guy who can successfully launch the world’s most powerful rocket into space, a feat hitherto reserved for nations with decent budgets. Since 2010 his...
Gwendolyn Galsworth
It’s easy enough to make a visual device—or borrow an idea for one from something you saw in a book or at another workplace. Reproducing other people’s ideas (as long as you say thank you) is a...
Michael Armstrong
Patients often wait weeks or months for medical appointments. Canada’s Fraser Institute recently reported that Canadians typically wait 10 weeks to see specialists. Long wait times are one reason...
Jun Nakamuro
The sad truth is that the word “engagement” is not very engaging. It’s one of those fluffy, ambiguous terms that have become all too familiar around the business world, like “empowerment” and “...
Harish Jose
It’s not easy to find topics to write about, and even if I find good topics, it has to pass my threshold level. As I was meditating on this, I started to think about procrastination and ambiguity....
Kevin Meyer
Ever since I visited Italy more than a decade ago my inner geek has had a fascination with traffic engineering. If you’ve visited Italy, or many similar places, you probably know why. Traffic...
Steven Brand
The global aerospace and defense (A&D) industry grew by 2.4 percent and generated about $674 billion in 2016, according to a Deloitte 2017 study. California alone was responsible for generating...
Markus Grau
Industry 4.0, cyber-physical systems, or the internet of things (IoT): the paradigm shift in the production economy is cheerfully progressing under various names. What they all refer to is the...
Bruce Hamilton
Speaking at the 2003 Shingo Conference, Guy Briggs, general manager of North American operations for General Motors lamented, “We spent the 1980s ‘counting robots’ before we realized that it’s...
Jim Benson
People are always asking us for help with ways to prioritize. Almost everyone believes prioritization to be an action in and of itself. They ask, “What mechanisms do you use to prioritize?” However...
Harish Jose
I recently read Jordan Ellenberg’s wonderful book, How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking (Penguin Books, 2014). I found the book to be enlightening and a great read....
Trevor Blumenau
How does one define quality in the context of a warehouse? The perfect warehouse is clean, has everything in its place, and is easy to access. Your warehouse looks like the one below, right?
You...
Bonnie Stone
Lean, also known as “lean manufacturing” or “lean production,” focuses on maximizing customer value by removing waste and eliminating defects. Lean tools are about understanding the process,...
Tonianne DeMaria
Lean says: Manage flow. Your brain says: My work isn’t linear. My day is filled with interruptions, and so I don’t have the “luxury” of flow. What’s at play here: functional fixedness.
If there...
Jordan Kraemer
During the past year, I stopped responding to customer surveys, providing user feedback or, mostly, contributing product reviews. Sometimes I feel obligated—even eager—to provide this information....
Kevin Meyer
Changing an organization’s structure seems to be the common knee-jerk response to internal issues. My prior company embarked on a reorganization to eliminate arbitrary site- and function-based...
Mike Richman
During the Nov. 3, 2017, episode of QDL, we (figuratively) traveled the globe to bring you quality information. Let’s take a closer look:
“‘Made in Japan’ Falls from Grace Amid Scandals, Systematic...
