“When the Bar Must Be Raised”, by XONITEK’s Joseph Paris. After a dramatic several years for motor giant Toyota, Joseph Paris suggests that the coveted TPS might be in need of its own Kaizen. Published in Lean Management Journal in the December/January 2014 issue.
Just-In-Time (JIT) inventory and manufacturing systems are management strategies where replenishment orders of raw materials, assemblies, and finished goods are based on production schedules; which themselves are based on real customer orders that are due at specific dates (even times). The objective is to increase efficiency and effectiveness by decreasing the waste associated with carrying…
The Canadian Division of a global food manufacturer saved 28 million dollars in eight months, and saved several plants from closing, despite their high cost of production in an underutilized manufacturing system. It all began when the senior management stopped resisting what the workforce had to say. They returned to zero and started to listen….
…but I am good with that if you are. My father, who was a manager at International Business Machines (IBM), once told me; “If it were not for the ‘people problems’, management would be easy.” In the world of management, and management consulting, truer words were never spoken. And so is the challenge with most…
Would you get on an airplane if it you knew the flight would fail 25-70% of the time? What if it was only 1% of the time? Would you get on an airplane if you knew one out of every hundred (1:100) flights would fail? That would be a failure rate of approximately one flight per hour, every hour,…
Operational Excellence Business Systems – Lean – Six Sigma e-Course Title: Operational Excellence: Business Systems – Lean – Six Sigma Duration: 30 Hours of Instruction and One-on-One Interactive Review10 Week Course; 3 Hours Per Week Dates: July 24, 2007 to September 28, 2007 Time: Tuesday (Live Instruction): 930am-1130am ESTFriday (Interactive Review; 1hour): Time To Be…
The art of debate has devolved. No longer is it used as a tool of discovery, understanding, reconciliation, and progress. Today, it is a tool used to beat one another into submission – with the wholesale surrender of the beliefs and values held by one party over the other being the goal. What’s worse, the…
