Without soil, water, and sunlight, a large, strong oak tree won’t grow. The same concept applies when building lean processes for a small to medium-sized manufacturer.

Last month I looked at how the fixed-width limits of a process behavior chart filter out virtually all of the routine variation regardless of the shape of the histogram.

Have you created a vision? You might be excited about it, but are others? Does your vision inspire, motivate, and guide decision making?

For growth-starved Western entrepreneurs, the Chinese market is appealing.

Every year, Manufacturing Day brings attention to the career path that has financed millions of growing families throughout the decades—including mine.

If you think it’s hard to tell how you’re doing at your job, imagine being a hockey goalie. Let’s say you block every shot in a game. Was that performance due to your superior skills? Or maybe just to a lack of skill in your opponents?

Editor’s note: Read episode two in the Respect for People series here.

I write about organizational culture and core values quite often.

The internet has radically democratized the means of marketing cultural products.

(Visual Workplace: Byron Center, MI) -- Huddle boards are a powerful tool for many industries. They provide a visual way for teams to collaborate on and assess the tasks necessary to complete a project.