Jeff Dewar
The photo below shows the Milky Way (from the Latin via lactea), a part of our galaxy as seen from Earth. It’s a barred spiral galaxy, essentially a flat disk of at least 100 billion stars. Our...
Gwendolyn Galsworth
When James Womack and Daniel Jones published Lean Thinking in 1996, they offered the world a book that collected the core principles of a key operational model. Though not stated directly, they...
Bob Emiliani
I recently posted a version of the graphic below with the caption: “Not perfect, but close. It’s about right.” The response was overwhelmingly positive. A great majority of people recognized it as...
William A. Levinson
Some ISO 9001 users complain that the standard does not improve performance or deliver bottom-line results, while others are delighted by the standard as a framework for effective quality...
Tonianne DeMaria Barry
While heading to a session at the most recent Lean Transformation Summit, I found myself confronted with signage that posed the following open-ended question: “All problem solvers must....”...
Jim Benson
Focusing on our most important work (so that we can get it out the door and create value) is hard. It’s harder still when work suddenly picks up, is unfamiliar, or arrives with immediate deadlines...
GBMP
American Rheinmetall Systems (ARS) LLC, formerly Vingtech, is located in Biddeford, Maine. Established in January 2007, as part of a Norwegian company that had received a supplier contract for the...
Mike Richman
QDL from Fri., Sept. 15, 2017, demonstrated that everywhere you look, you’ll find the positive effect of better quality. Here’s what we chatted about:
““U.S. Business Sectors Gain or Hold Steady in...
Christopher Martin
It’s said that the first five years of children’s lives are important to their future development and growth. Most of that is spent at home with parents and loved ones, before children are thrust...
Jon Speer
Medical device startups tend to share many common issues. They are usually striving for better resources (such as people and capital) as well as the knowledge and expertise required to deal with...
Anthony D. Burns
I had humble, that is, poor, beginnings. I didn’t even know the taste of real ice cream until later in life. One of the first impacts I felt of the luxury that technology brings was the diode my...
Kevin Meyer
One of the most powerful lean tools is called value stream mapping, a visual management method used to document the flow and creation of value in a process. The definition of a value stream is all...
Therese Graff
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal (“The Reason Southwest Stopped Overbooking”), which contained excerpts from an interview with Southwest Airlines’ CEO Gary Kelly, brought out the need to...
Dirk Dusharme @ Quality Digest
Our August 11, 2017, episode of QDL looked at the role of technology in after-market service, stairs that help you up, Fidget Cubes, and more.
“Climbing Stairs Just Got Easier With Energy-Recycling...
Gerald Friedman
It’s easier than ever to buy stuff. You can purchase almost anything on Amazon with a click, and it is only slightly harder to find a place to stay in a foreign city on Airbnb. So why can’t we pay...
Bruce Hamilton
At GBMP’s launch of the Shingo Institute’s Build Excellence workshop, it occurred to me that perhaps systems thinking might be more aptly named systems rethinking. Workshop participants offered up...
Jun Nakamuro
Japanese improvement techniques have been emulated across the globe for decades, and none carries more cultural weight than the theory of kaizen. When I expose Western leaders to lean practices in...
Ken Levine
Completing the define phase of a lean Six Sigma (LSS) project is a critical part of any project, although it’s often underestimated in practice. The define phase of the define, measure, analyze,...
John Guaspari
‘You want me to pull the kids out of school for what?”
I could tell that my wife didn’t like my idea because she had used the tone she uses when I say something that is, to employ the pet phrase...
Steven Brand
Labor costs are likely the largest line item on your company balance sheet. Therefore, a successful cost-reduction strategy must adequately balance resourcing and cost controls.
Although laying...
