In principle, the mountaineer’s work is simple: “To win the game he has first to reach the mountain’s summit,” said George Mallory, who took part in Britain’s first three attempts on Everest during the 1920s. “But, further, he has to descend in safety.”

In a previous column (“Why Innovate?

One of my favorite equations from Factory Physics, by Wallace Hopp and Mark Spearman (Waveland Press, third edition, 2011) is Kingman’s formula, usually represe

Science fiction has long imagined a future in which humans constantly interact with robots and intelligent machines.

More often than not, an effective implementation of operator-led visuality produces a 15- to 30-percent increase in productivity on the cell or departmental level, beginning with the implementation of the “visual where” (or, as our trainers like to call it, 5S on ste

Organizations in the automotive and related industries such as steel, plastics, and semiconductors have been heavily influenced by automotive industry standards and practices like IATF 16949, advanced product quality planning (APQP), failure mode and effects analysis

Ask any manager at a large organization why the purchasing department matters, and the first factor he will mention will probably be costs. But cost control, though a core competency, is far from the only way purchasing affects firm performance.

Reflecting on Douglas McGregor’s X and Y theories of human motivation, Shigeo Shingo took the position that each of us by nature has a dual tendency: sometimes lazy and self-interested,