All Features
Gwendolyn Galsworth
In a visual workplace, information is converted into simple, universally understood visual devices and installed in the process of work itself, as close to the point of use as possible. The result transforms a formerly mute work environment into one that speaks, eloquently and precisely, about how…
Andy Henderson
In my last article about the future of cutting tools, I discussed a vision and road map that I created by imagining what a manufacturing ideal might look like using what we know to be technically possible today. Here, I’m going to describe a vision for a futuristic production management system…
The United State Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that $60 billion is lost annually from workplace injuries and illness. Using the administration’s $afety Pays Program calculator, 20 carpal tunnel syndrome injuries will cost a company $1,260,000 in direct and indirect…
Joel Bradbury
Healthcare professionals have a long history of caring for their patients and improving the quality of their services. During the Crimean War (1853–1856), British nurse Florence Nightingale realized that the mortality rate of soldiers was far too high. A visionary statistician as well as a…
Bruce Hamilton
One of Shigeo Shingo’s popular status quo targets was engineers, whom he placed in three categories: table engineers, those who just sit around a table and talk about problems; catalog engineers, those who think the solution to every problem can be found in a catalog; and nyet engineers, those who…
Christian Wolcott
T he following is for mature quality audiences only. Is it unwise to take people who are new to lean on a tour of a Toyota facility running at top efficiency? Is the sight of a glossy, mature lean factory a kind of pornography for young engineers, new leaders, and even seasoned managers seeking to…
Kevin Meyer
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Like most people, I maintain a fairly long to-do list of personal and professional projects. It’s a few pages long—especially the honey-do portion. Because the list can be intimidating,…
Jason Furness
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Manufacturing Money (Amazon Digital Services, 2015) by Jason Furness and Michael McLean. See the article on the Manufacturship blog.
I n martial arts, the level of skill of the practitioner is recognized by the use of different colored belts to be worn with…
Industrial companies are facing critical challenges rooted in slow growth, globalization, the effect of disruptive technologies, and unforeseen competitive threats. A new report from global management consulting firm, L.E.K. Consulting, reveals how those companies are responding—and what the…
Jesse Lyn Stoner
Larry was clearly angry. Carl had used his tools (again) without asking, and even worse, hadn’t returned them (again). Larry told me he had given Carl some “tough feedback.”
He told Carl that he was self-centered and insensitive, and in the future he needed to ask for permission before borrowing…
Brian Lagas
Embracing sustainable and green principles is more than simply “a good thing to do.” Manufacturers are realizing the many practical short- and long-term financial benefits to implementing environmentally conscious improvements. Such practices helps organizations become more efficient, competitive…
Bruce Hamilton
I was lucky that the first boss I ever had (at age 13) had much to teach at a point when I had much to learn. Chris M. was a brilliant but illiterate Italian immigrant and fisherman who had built a landmark restaurant and marina on the bay in Ocean City, New Jersey. That was my first lesson: You…
Kevin Meyer
When many people go into the office, they start their day by chatting with some colleagues, checking their email, and surfing the net for a while. Then they start working on whatever project is due that day. Soon, however, they hear the sound of a new email arriving, which they promptly open,…
Thomas R. Cutler
Manufacturers’ waste-reduction initiatives are rarely as effective as they could be. When reducing waste, inventory is often the main target. But how do you right-size inventory in an environment of constant variability? In a word: kanban.
Electronic kanban signals keep product moving throughout…
GBMP
Ellis Medicine is a 438-bed community and teaching healthcare system serving New York’s capital region. With four main campuses, five additional service locations, more than 3,300 employees, and more than 700 medical staff, Ellis Medicine offers an extensive array of inpatient and outpatient…
Annette Franz
How are you getting to the root cause of any issue you or your customers are having? What types of root cause analyses are you conducting? Are you even thinking about root cause analysis?
Conducting some sort of root cause analysis (and there are many different types) any time you experience an…
Fred Schenkelberg
We establish reliability goals and measure reliability performance. Goals and measures can be related; however, they’re not the same, and neither do they serve the same purpose.
Recently, I’ve seen a few statements that seem to confuse the role of statistical confidence when establishing a goal.…
Gwendolyn Galsworth
Summer with its balmy evenings and long talks with good friends, lemonades in hand, is over. Let’s set the groundwork for this new season and get our definitions in place, once again—the difference between visual and lean.
What is lean?
Technically speaking, lean is a predetermined set of…
Anthony Harris
The proliferation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO), spurred by the healthcare industry’s shift from fee-for-service to pay-for-performance, has focused healthcare executives’ attention on clinical outcome metrics. Yet the greatest barriers—individual clinician practices—remain difficult to…
While commanding four vessels sailing between England and India in 1601, Capt. James Lancaster performed one of the great experiments in medical history. Each of the seamen on just one ship—his own, of course—was required to sip three teaspoons of lemon juice per day. By the midpoint of the voyage…
Harish Jose
Kaizen is often translated as “continuous improvement” and identified as one of the core themes in lean. Today I’m pondering the question: Can kaizen ever be bad for an organization?
In order to go deeper on this question, first we have to define kaizen as a focused improvement activity. The…
Ryan E. Day
Sponsored Content
You might say what Henry Ford did for the automobile, GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi have done for the gas and steam turbine industry. Naturally, the tools and technicians of both sectors have had to evolve right along with the challenges of new technology and the ever-increasing…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
We recently had dinner with a wonderful friend and colleague, Michelle Guenther. During our meal, Michelle mentioned a conversation at work when she responded to a question with, “What I believe to be true is....” She said she frequently prefaces her answers to questions with that phrase and that…
Bruce Hamilton
The following is inspired by The Teachings of Don Juan (Washington Square Press, reprint 1985), an anthropological novel from the 1960s written by Carlos Castaneda, chronicling his travels with Don Juan, a Yaqui shaman. To crudely paraphrase, according to Don Juan, the road to knowledge is first…
Bob Emiliani
To this day, lean management has yet to enter the mainstream in business. It remains solidly on the fringe, despite great efforts by many people over many decades.
You almost never hear of lean management in the business press unless the article is written by an insider such as James P. Womack or…
