Category: Concepts and Principles

I used to send IW articles about lean.  But I’ve switched to covering corporate culture, change management, and employee engagement morale.  Thus the two  articles on culture and morale.  With more to come.

There are a couple of reasons for this…

First, I cover lean here and in my email so I don’t have many ideas left for IW.  I’d often go a year or two between submissions to IW about lean.

Second, lean is covered quite well by Larry Fast.  I’ve linked to a couple of his IW articles here.  He’s about the best I’ve read.  (Lonnie Wilson, Jamie Flinchbaugh,  and James Shook also come mind as better than average writers on the topic.)  So I figured I’d leave the IW lean turf to him.

So…check out my second Industry Week article in the past month!

 

Hey, I just got another article published on the Industry Week website.  Here it is…you should read it.

 

 

OK, I don’t actually want you to altogether forget about lean.  I do want you to get rid of the notion (if you ever had it) that lean is a tool bag of tricks and techniques for wringing a few bucks out of your manufacturing processes or for getting another percentage point of efficiency from your employees.  There are ways of achieving those ends if that’s what you want but lean ain’t it.  Rather, lean is all about creating a smooth, consistent, predictable flow of information and materials through your organization.  I found a couple of good articles that reinforce my thinking that I want you to check out.

Continue reading “Forget Lean…It’s About Process Stability and Flow”

I’ve often said that lean is NOT cost cutting.  Maybe a better way to put it is, lean is one thing…cost cutting is another.  I found an article that provides a few good examples of cost-cutting that aren’t lean.  And that’s not a bad thing.
Continue reading “Cost Cutting vs Lean”

As I’ve mentioned, I’m getting started on putting more material on YouTube.  Here’s my latest…it’s an overview/description that answers (one hopes) the question, “What is Lean?”

I hope you’ll get a chance to check it out.  I think my own definition, while not brand new and “never-heard-of”, does take a bit of a different slant from that of many of descriptions.  And, as you might imagine, I like my description better.  So, go take a look!

I’ve learned recently that about any search term that includes “Six Sigma” does well.  Regular readers know that I haven’t talked much about Six Sigma over the many months I’ve been involved with this blog.  I’m not a Six Sigma “any-kind-of-belt” but I do know a bit about the statistical tools that Six Sigma advocates.  (Design of Experiments is a bit above my pay grade but I’m betting the number of actual Design of Experiments projects run in any given year by manufacturers is relatively low.)  All to say, it’s not because I don’t like Six Sigma that I don’t talk about it much.  It’s more that Six Sigma and Lean and their relationship are misunderstood by most managers  and I’ve focused on trying to clarify the “lean” part of it.

Continue reading “Which is Better…Lean or Six Sigma?”