Bruce Hamilton

President, vice chair, teacher, change agent

Bruce Hamilton, president of the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership (GBMP), brings hands-on experience as a manager, teacher, and change agent. Prior to GBMP, Hamilton led efforts to transform United Electric Controls Co.’s production from a traditional batch factory to a single-piece-flow environment that has become an international showcase. Hamilton has spoken internationally on lean manufacturing, employee involvement, continuous improvement, and implementing change. Also, he has contributed to numerous texts ranging from visual control to variety reduction. Hamilton’s blog, Old Lean Dude, is an ongoing reflection on lean philosophy and practices, with an emphasis on keeping good jobs close to home.

Wed, 12/15/2010 - 04:30
Leader Standard Waste, Part Two Who is accountable?
Tue, 06/05/2018 - 12:02
Many years ago, the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) introduced a visual measurement device to my factory, referred to as a “production activity log” (PAL), also known to some as an hour-by-hour chart. Posted at the last operation of a…
Leader Standard Waste, Part One When visual devices are the sole standard for visual controls, managers learn little about the gemba
Mon, 06/04/2018 - 12:02
Three years ago I wrote an article titled “The Emperor’s New Huddle Boards,” in which I expressed concern about the trappings of improvement without actual improvement. Since then, my concern about the application of leader standard work and gemba…
Who Cares for the Caregivers? At what point does an annoyance become a problem?
Mon, 05/14/2018 - 12:02
Last month I joined Eric Buhrens, CEO at Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), to host a leadership team from Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center. They were on a study mission to many of Boston’s fine hospitals and were winding up their week with a visit…
Rosie the Robot We should not fall prey to counting robots
Tue, 01/02/2018 - 12:02
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 people that make the difference in our business.” He…
Tools or Culture? Two sides of the same coin
Mon, 10/30/2017 - 12:01
The first two books I ever read about lean were Zero Inventories (McGraw-Hill, 1983) by Robert Hall, and Japanese Manufacturing Techniques (Free Press, 1982) by Richard Schonberger. In 1985, these definitive academic works were among just a few…
Lean Society Our longstanding preoccupation with degrees, certificates, and belts
Wed, 08/23/2017 - 12:02
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
—George Orwell The famous quote from George Orwell’s political allegory, Animal Farm, occurred to me recently as I listened to a design engineer explain to me how he was…
Systems ‘Tinking’ Don’t let the policy books gather dust
Thu, 08/03/2017 - 12:01
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 current systems in their organizations that…
The Final Frontier Square footage as a badge of success
Wed, 07/19/2017 - 12:02
On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first U.S. astronaut to journey to the “final frontier.” Atop a Mercury rocket, Shepard launched into a 15-minute suborbital journey reaching an altitude of about 100 miles before returning to Earth. His…
Reflecting on Waste A corollary to the worst and most dangerous wastes
Mon, 06/05/2017 - 12:02
For me, Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo are a bit like the Lennon and McCartney of waste elimination. Together they frame the technical and social sciences of what we call lean today. Taiichi Ohno tells us there are seven wastes that account for 95…
Babel Continuous improvement needs a systems language to clarify key concepts
Mon, 04/10/2017 - 12:03
I grew up in a small manufacturing company where nine different languages were spoken. English was the language of managers, office workers, and some of our production employees. Additionally, these languages were spoken in our factory: Armenian,…