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2007-2011. All rights reserved.
Lean Thoughts
Lean Thoughts, a weekly e-newsletter, was started to keep the members of the Lean Consortium connected. The purpose of the e-newsletter is to increase the ability to communicate and share best practices with our readers. We attempt to restrict the length of the newsletter to just two pages of valuable content that can be applied and shared within your organization.
This week's edition
By Richard Kunst
President and CEO
__________________________________________________________________________
We have been busy applying Lean Methodologies within a dominant administrative environment recently. As we implemented Timed Delivery Routes, it was amazing how quickly “batching” became visible and how the cadence of flow was reflected in the frequency of “mail runs”, some simple tweaking will dramatically increase throughput and Process Lead Time ... imagine if you took a similar approach within your operation.
The following information was shared through an e-mail ... thought we would share
This is a very timely piece as we witness turmoil, anger, dishonesty and just plain bad behaviour throughout our daily lives, both on the home front and abroad. Some good guidance for our children.
Lessons from the Japanese
What can the world, learn from the Japanese, who are patiently and ably bearing the brunt of nature's fury, due to their precarious location on the ring of fire (Volcano, Fault Lines, Tectonic Plate Edge).
1. THE CALM
Not a single visual of chest-beating or wild grief. Sorrow itself has been elevated.
2.THE DIGNITY
Disciplined queues for water and groceries. Not a rough word or a crude gesture.
3. THE ABILITY
The incredible architects, for instance. Buildings swayed but didn't fall.
4. THE GRACE
People bought only what they needed for the present, so everybody could get something.
5. THE ORDER
No looting in shops. No honking and no overtaking on the roads. Just understanding.
6. THE SACRIFICE
Fifty workers stayed back to pump sea water in the N-reactors. How will they ever be repaid?
7. THE TENDERNESS
Restaurants cut prices. An unguarded ATM is left alone. The strong cared for the weak.
8. THE TRAINING
The old and the children, everyone knew exactly what to do. And they did just that.
9. THE MEDIA
They showed magnificent restraint in the bulletins. No silly reporters. Only calm reportage.
10.THE CONSCIENCE
When the power went off in a store, people put things back on the shelves and left quietly.
Can we share these virtues with our Children, Family and Friends in the respective positions/ professions??
(This courtesy of sharing valuable information might go a long way in reminding people about the path of propriety.)
Regards,
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This Year
03/01/2011 You won a PRIZE spend and share wisely!
10/01/2011 17 Facts About China That Will Blow Your Mind
17/01/2011 STRATEGIC plan to individual ACTION
24/01/2011 STRATEGIC planTto individual ACTION 2
31/01/2011 Hire for ATTITUDE and train for APTITUDE
07/02/2011 PROGRESSION Planning and Managing CHANGE
14/02/2011 Are you using the power of TAKT TIME?
21/02/2011 LEAN Customer
28/02/2011 "UP" - What does it really mean?
07/03/2011 “VISION” of VISUAL workplace
14/03/2011 The new economy technology eliminates work & workers
21/03/2011 Developing a lean culture
28/03/2011 5 Steps to Implementing a Lean Material Handling System
04/04/2011 SKU management
Year 2010
04/01/2010 Slow Down … Go Faster
11/01/2010 Bored by Lean
18/01/2010 SWOT
25/01/2010 Social networking
01/02/2010 More than lean operations
08/02/2010 Values build culture
15/02/2010 The case for backshoring
22/02/2010 Looking for the next evolution of lean? Look back.
01/03/2010 Looking for the next evolution of lean? TOC -DBR
08/03/2010 Tools for innovation and breaking intellectual inertia TRIZ
15/03/2010 Lean Deployment Observation Sheet - Quick Lean Audit
22/03/2010 Forming –Storming –Norming--Performing
29/03/2010 Leveraging your Maintenance Team?
05/04/2010 Making Cells work for You!
12/04/2010 Some thoughts on...ISHEKAWA Charts
19/04/2010 Six Basic Problems with Business Performance Metrics
26/04/2010 Steven Tyler Laid Off From AerosmithAs Band's Jobless Rate Hits 20%
03/05/2010 Jidoka [Line Stoppage Variation]
10/05/2010 Focus on Lean The Art of Sustaining Lean Performance
17/05/2010 Capacity Staffing Plan or …Why Do LEAN in meager times?
24/05/2010 Conduct an AssessmentMeasure the pulse of your journey
31/05/2010 Lean Value StreamHave you truly defined your value stream?
07/06/2010 VisionIt is not just for the big guys!
14/06/2010 Code of ConductArticulating your values
21/06/2010 BULL WIP the effect in your supply chain
28/06/2010 10 Common Misconceptions About Lean
05/07/2010 Trust in your Supply Chainor measure for results
12/07/2010 Manufacturing Myths
19/07/2010 Deming’s PDCA and Value Stream Mapping
26/07/2010 The Right Process Will Produce the Right Results
02/08/2010 Updating Your Value Stream Maps !!
09/08/2010 Selling Change
16/08/2010 From Supply Chain to Value Chain
23/08/2010 Customer Loyalty
06/09/2010 Customer Loyalty
13/09/2010 Lean Journey
20/09/2010 John Kotter’ 8 Step Change model
27/09/2010 Pokayoke [Mistake Proofing]
04/10/2010 Team Alignment
11/10/2010 Good Enough Never Is [Or is it?]
18/10/2010 Value Stream Mapping
01/11/2010 Compression Thinking
08/11/2010 The White Board Marker or Learning Through Writing!
15/11/2010 The Observation Sheet Or Learning By Looking!
22/11/2010 10 Secrets To Improving Your Speaking Skills
29/11/2010 JESSENKEN
06/12/2010 Stories for Continuous Improvement & Leadership
13/12/2010 Improving SAFETY
20/12/2010 Merry Christmas
Year 2009
05/01/2009 People are Important
12/01/2009 Challenges for 2009 ?
19/01/2009 How To Manage Your Business in a Recession
25/01/2009 Pessimist or Opportunistic?
02/02/2009 January Indicators
09/02/2009 How to THRIVE instead of survive
16/02/2009 Casual Glance? or Do you Look and See and Observe?
23/02/2009 Material Velocity & Conveyance, the test of Lean
02/03/2009 Not Lean … but shows Leadership
09/03/2009 Strategic Importance of Forecasting
16/03/2009 SKU Management
23/03/2009 Adaptability…..The Non-Negotiable Competency
30/03/2009 WAL MART - The Lean Enforcer
06/04/2009 Velocity the Genesis of LEAN
13/04/2009 Getting Lean “Right”:10 points to consider before embarking on your lean transformation
20/04/2009 The Three Ps of Lean Action
27/04/2009 Six Basic Problems with Business Performance Metrics
04/05/2009 Designing the “RUBBER” Production Environment
11/05/2009 No Counting !!
18/05/2009 Water Spiders
25/05/2009 Respect for People or …Distributed Accountability?
01/06/2009 Re-Purpose Before You Re-StructureA recent note from James Womach
08/06/2009 Connecting Across the Generations in the Workplace
14/06/2009 Once again, 5S+1 is not about just about creating a clean and organized environment
21/06/2009 Next Generation Manufacturing Study
28/06/2009 Growth midst recession scarcity & abundance
06/07/2009 Visitors are your best Auditors
13/07/2009 Developing a lean changeover program
20/07/2009 Summer “Lean” reading
27/07/2009 Perception
03/08/2009 5 Minute 5S+1
10/08/2009 Hosting Better Meetings
17/08/2009 Capacity Staffing Plan or …Why Do LEAN in meager times?
24/08/2009 Hirano’s Eight Conditions for Flow
31/08/2009 How do you treat your orders?
07/09/2009 PokaYoke (Mistake Proofing)
14/09/2009 Put Your Mission and Values To Work-to Produce Alignment
28/09/2009 The Birthday Club-a cool tool to manage rumours-
05/10/2009 The Mind of a Lean Manager-a recent note from James Womack -
12/10/2009 The Beauty of a Well Executed Plan
19/10/2009 The Roots of Lean Manufacturing
26/10/2009 Kaizen Notes borrowed from Norm Bodeck
01/11/2009 Dreyfus Model
09/11/2009 Kaizen Patterns
16/11/2009 What is your Employee Retention Plan?
23/11/2009 DMEDI or DMAIC? That is the Question
30/11/2009 Changeover Costs. Do you really understand the impact?
07/12/2009 Stories for Continuous Improvement & Leadership
14/12/2009 Respect for People Beware the foxes…
21/12/2009 Do Good Anyway
Year 2008
02/01/2008 Employees or owners?
07/01/2008 Supply chain management
14/01/2008 Lean Customer
21/01/2008 An industry died this week and you probably did not even notice
28/01/2008 Where to do lean
04/02/2008 Succession planning and managing change
11/02/2008 Are you using the power of Takt Time?
18/02/2008 Design for assembly
25/02/2008 Jumping to solution
03/03/2008 Chaku Chaku
10/03/2008 Futurists and futures forecasts
17/03/2008 Best Lean Indicators
24/03/2008 It's time for Sales, Marketing to get lean
31/03/2008 Kanban's everywhere
07/04/2008 2008 Consortium ShareShowcase
14/04/2008 Unscrambling supply chains
21/04/2008 Lean & Clean
28/04/2008 Leveraging your Maintenance team?
05/05/2008 The art of sustaining lean performance
12/05/2008 Left or right brain dominance
19/05/2008 Maintenance area audit - a great lean measurement
25/05/2008 Why Throughput Accounting
02/06/2008 Orator, Visual or Touch Communications?
09/06/2008 Yield
16/06/2008 Nice Car, Long Journey
23/06/2008 5S+1 “SHINE” Saves $$
30/06/2008 Process Problem Solving
07/07/2008 Keeping employees engaged
14/07/2008 The “Forever” Rule – an attribute of Product Realization -
21/07/2008 Ten Reasons Why One Piece Flow Will Not Work
04/08/2008 Managing Customer Demand
11/08/2008 Cadence in Process
18/08/2008 Nothing Adds Value to Lean Like Respect for People
25/08/2008 Another Perspective look at Lean
02/09/2008 Poka yoke (Mistake Proofing)
08/09/2008 What to do in case of stalling
15/09/2008 Two Paths to Quick Changeover
22/09/2008 Manage the Contract or Improve the Value Stream
29/09/2008 Tips on making the most of government incentive programs for R&D
06/10/2008 A New Profile of the 21st Century Workforce
13/10/2008 Manage your Inputs to control your costs
20/10/2008 "Suck don’t Blow" - Compressed air costs cash
27/10/2008 LEAN in Recessionary Times
03/11/2008 Saishunkan Cosmetics - Customer Care Trumps a Factory
10/11/2008 A Recession Action Plan
17/11/2008 The 13 Characteristics of Successful People
24/11/2008 Training Within Industry
01/12/2008 Lean Consortium
08/12/2008 Training Within Industry What Is Training Within Industry? –Description
15/12/2008 Stress, Business & Safety
22/12/2008 Merry Christmas
Year 2007
02/01/2007 What I've learned about planning and execution
08/01/2007 5S+1… more than labels and shadow boxes
15/01/2007 10 Tech concepts you need to know for 2007
22/01/2007 Visible preventive maintenance or TPM checksheet
29/01/2007 Getting really serious about making the lean transformation?
05/02/2007 The culrure thing!
12/02/2007 Smart floors
19/02/2007 A global intelligence briefing for CEOs
26/02/2007 Looking more closely at little and often
05/03/2007 TWI influence on TPS & Kaizen
12/03/2007 5 Steps to implementing a lean material handling system
19/03/2007 Crossing the lean threshold
26/03/2007 Asking questions on the shop floor
02/04/2007 Why production most come first: The proper sequence for Lean Enterprise Transformation
09/04/2007 Why Toyota won and how Toyota can lose
16/04/2007 The machine is US/ing Us
23/04/2007 Some thoughts on Ishekawa charts
30/04/2007 The unspoken rules of toyota
07/05/2007 Consortium ShareShowcase 2007
14/05/2007 Getting lean right!
21/05/2007 Cash and the lean enterprise
28/05/2007 Selecting high-performing employees
11/06/2007 The problem of sustainability
18/06/2007 Norm Bodek speaks on Toyota
25/06/2007 Can lean work in any culture?
02/07/2007 10 Common misconceptions about lean manufacturing
09/07/2007 In God we trust… all others bring data
16/07/2007 Deming's PDCA and Value Stream Mapping
30/07/2007 Lean is as Lean does
06/08/2007 What to teach the kids
20/08/2007 Why is no one asking the Product Development Community to create low-waste designs?
27/08/2007 Managing people, your most valuable resource
03/09/2007 Managing people, your most valuable resource - Part 2 -
10/09/2007 Output… What is your role and accountability?
17/09/2007 The right ingredients for a successful TPM or Lean implementation
07/10/2007 No time? Or standing on a burning plataform? Then… join or build a consortium
14/10/2007 The next 10 years of lean
21/10/2007 Kaizen - Notes borrowed from Norm Bodeck
28/10/2007 Accessories for lean practitioners
05/11/2007 Thinking back from the customer
19/11/2007 Lean culture
26/11/2007 Managing change
03/12/2007 Lean lingo primer
10/12/2007 Merry Christmas!!!
Year 2006
09/01/2006 The power of doing daily Report-outs
16/01/2006 What is Kaizen??
23/01/2006 Applying Lean Mfg In the home
06/02/2006 All I ever needed to know about lean, I learned in Kindergarten
13/02/2006 The Toyota Way Fieldbook
20/02/2006 Visual Standard Work Instructions
27/02/2006 Orenda Aerospace Corporarion
06/03/2006 A tale of two business systems
13/03/2006 Green eggs and ham
20/03/2006 The roots of lean manufacturing
27/03/2006 Creating a lean culture
03/04/2006 Why implement lean in the front office
10/04/2006 Developing problem solvers
17/04/2006 Lean and Six Sigma
01/05/2006 Share ShowCase! Consortium Challenge
08/05/2006 Laying out the factory
15/05/2006 Fewer Heroes, More Farmers
22/05/2006 Assembly line put the world on wheels
29/05/2006 Designing the rubber factory
12/06/2006 The leadership challenge
19/06/2006 Purpose, Process, People
03/07/2006 Morning Market
10/07/2006 Successful change formula
17/07/2006 Reminder 1,061… The water level and the rocks… Remember the story?
24/07/2006 Building an Ant Colony
31/07/2006 Implementing 5S… The jump start and sustaining an integrated journey?
07/08/2006 Marrying lean to right sized technologies
14/08/2006 The long tail
21/08/2006 Thinking end to end
28/08/2006 Have better meetings
04/09/2006 Lean manufacturing & IT: No oxymoron!
11/09/2006 Can you be too lean??
18/09/2006 Here is a Jim Womack insight that you will not want to miss
25/09/2006 People and change
02/10/2006 7 Wastes of design
09/10/2006 Avoiding common VSM pitfalls
16/10/2006 The value stream organization
23/10/2006 GM Execs need more Hummers
30/10/2006 Recruiting
06/11/2006 How's your employee retention plan?
13/11/2006 "I am the difference"
20/11/2006 Lean - It's not just for the shop floor anymore: A lean office
eliminates waste and saves time and money
27/11/2006 "From lean tools to lean management"
04/12/2006 Principles of lean
11/12/2006 Jay Myers leaves HPM Board Members thinking about '07
18/12/2006 A tought to leave you with…



Content for Lean Thoughts is gathered through dialogue with our readers, and a multitude of communication sources in today’s society that are helping individuals, organizations or companies continually striving for excellence.