image from wikipedia I read an inspiring post today by Robert Hafey on the Lean Safety blog about his attempts to apply his lean training and expertise to something as basic as cooking food and serving it to a large group of people, but, the best part of the article wasn’t the lean angle. It was who he was serving. He and six other close friends and…
Mike Wilson | September 26, 2012 | 5S | 5S, Continuous Improvement, Lean
Ron Pereira over at the LSSAcademy.com offered a really cool video that pits regular mass production vs. one piece flow, and his simulation produced a time savings with the one piece flow. In his video, what I found to be as interesting as his presented material were the comments at the bottom by professionals in manufacturing. They all seemed to think that one piece flow definitely has…
Mike Wilson | September 25, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
Jon Wetzel, at the Lean for Everyone blog, gives some ideas on how to get everybody interested in implementing lean in their workplace by making it affect them personally. “WIIFM” or “What’s In It For Me” is the basis for much of what people do both consciously and subconsciously. As lean trainers, we need to use this to our advantage when trying to transform a company. He…
Mike Wilson | September 11, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
On Joe Dager’s Lean-based website, Business901.com, he and David Veech of The Lean Way produced a podcast in which they conversed about the two “over-arching drivers” that should be inherent in any successful lean implementation: respect for people and continuous improvement. In the podcast, Veech makes the point that the technicality of continuous improvement and the use of its tools are usually utilized, but goes on to…
Mike Wilson | September 7, 2012 | Lean | Lean, Lean Manufacturing
W. Edwards Deming (photo courtesy of Wikipedia) I was reading Mark Graban’s Lean Blog today, and he mentioned the importance of W. Edwards Deming’s work with the Japanese. The idea of continual improvement was not Deming’s invention, but he certainly became one of the symbols of it, first to many Japanese manufacturers, and then later, ironically, to his own countrymen in the United States via their study…
Mike Wilson | August 22, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
The other day, I was consulting with a customer who was designated as his company’s “go-to guy” for implementing lean in their shop. He wasn’t entirely convinced with the move, questioning, since his company has been doing well for the past 3 decades, why would they need to fix something that isn’t broken? I asked him how many people work in his warehouse–he said fifteen. I then…
Mike Wilson | July 23, 2012 | Lean | Lean
Here’s a question from a healthcare leader that I thought I’d share for input from you, the blog readers. This person is looking to change their hiring and people “sourcing” practices after visiting ThedaCare and learning about their “Human Development Value Stream” work. Based on your experience, what do you think are the most important characteristics/attributes a person needs to have to be successful in a Lean…
Mike Wilson | July 4, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Kaizen, Lean, Lean Culture
