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Browsing All posts tagged under »lean«
Mistake-Proofing Mistakes
There is a popular lore provided by Shigeo Shingo, that the original name for mistake-proofing (Poka-Yoke) was “fool-proofing” (Baka-Yoke). Shingo chided managers at Panasonic for using the latter term, as it was disrespectful to workers, essentially calling them fools. Shingo substituted the word “mistake” for “fool”, because, as he aptly noted, making mistakes is part […]
Putting The Pieces Together
July 24, 2015
Summer’s here, and that means a family vacation to the beach, the boardwalk and the Hamilton’s favorite Pizza place. We all agree that Manco’s pizza is the best anywhere, but we differ on the reason why. My brother, Geoff, thinks it’s the cheese: aged white cheddar in place of mozzarella. My son, Ben, says it’s […]
Long-Term Sinking
June 30, 2015
This past week my organization, GBMP, moved from our home of twenty years at the Boston campus of the University of Massachusetts. The UMB College of Management needed more space and so did we, so we relocated to quarters that will afford room for our growing staff and dedicated training space for our customers. The […]
Overproduction
September 25, 2014
Not wishing to rub salt in the wounds of my beleaguered Red Sox, their meteoric rise from last place in 2012 to first place in 2013 and subsequent plummet to the cellar in 2014 underscores the problems with speculative production. Last week, celebrating a birthday, I was offered a dish of “Fenway Fudge” ice cream, […]
I’m Against It!
September 2, 2014
A recent viewing of a Marx Brothers film caused me to reflect on one of the questions I’m frequently asked, “How do you deal with people that are against Lean?” My stock response is to quote Shigeo Shingo’s advice that “99% of objection is cautionary,” that is, persons who appear to vigorously object to Lean […]
How We Learn
August 8, 2014
While I am an unabashed proponent of learning by doing, I have a list of books that have over the years been essential to me as a framework for experiential learning. Most of these books were written before 1990, and one of the most insightful, Managerial Engineering by Ryuji Fukuda, was first published in English […]
Be Careful What You Wish For – Part II
May 27, 2014
Four years ago I posted a funny story passed along to me by a Lean friend, that dealt with the consequences of crazy measures, and how lack of management oversight will allow these measures to persist indefinitely. It’s one of my shortest posts and worth a quick read if you haven’t already seen it. Go […]
December 8, 2015
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