Industry 4.0 is the topic of conversation in manufacturing today. But most of us have not yet figured out all we can and should do …
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To Automate, Or Not To Automate
Category Archives: Lean-Manufacturing
Please! Please Become Disciplined!
If your costs are higher than you want, speed is no where near where it should be, and you all too frequently live in a …
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Heijunka is For Thinking Too
This week between Christmas and New Year is commonly wasted by US manufacturers. I get the holiday spirit, and that people need to relax and …
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Supply Chain Visibility
It’s not shipping on time that matters; it is receiving on time. That is true for you, and for your customers. That means manufacturers can …
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Learning from Observation
CEOs, COOs, and consultants like myself do NOT know everything. We shouldn’t pretend to, nor expect ourselves to. We do need to constantly focus on …
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Lean is NOT Toyota’s system
Last week’s podcast exposed my frustration with executives and journalists who claim to understand lean but obviously, to me and my opinionated thinking, do not. Today …
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JIT is NOT the Problem!
The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are fact-based high-quality newspapers. Each has acquired ‘political leanings’ in some of their writing, but for …
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Push or Pull, Revisited
Some insist that “electronic Kanban,” an alleged “pull” system, and increased ERP responsiveness replace the pull of a visual gemba-based kanban. Not true. Whether push …
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Continuous Learning Outperforms Continuous Improvement
Why is CI insufficient for long term success, and what can you do about it? Here is advice for all manufacturing leaders to create operations …
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Why Lean Fails So Often