February 8th, 2007 - by Mark Edmondson
Our client continues describing how staying close to operations helped with their problem solving (see part 1 and part 2):
“We now understood that a root cause of our problems with delivery times and parts shortages is how we manage our logistics and signal delivery of parts from our suppliers. Our operations use an MRP system [...]
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Posted in Category: Lean Leadership / Change Management, Supply Chain & Logistics, Lean Manufacturing | No Comments »
January 29th, 2007 - by Mark Edmondson
Sage advice well stated from the Hardin-Simmons University web site:
“As a supervisor, do you listen to your employees? Take this test. Every Friday afternoon, write down three things that you learned from employees that week. Examples: An insight into customer service procedures; a better way to handle a process; reasons why a project did not [...]
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Posted in Category: Idea Generation / Engaging Employees, Developing People / Continuous Improvement, Executive Coaching | No Comments »
January 23rd, 2007 - by Mark Edmondson
Many of you know and use PDCA, the scientific method for process improvement. But are you also familiar with standardize-do-check-act (SDCA) cycle?
As explained by Masaaki Imai in his book Gemba Kaizen
“…SDCA standardizes and stabilizes the current processes, while PDCA improves them. SDCA refers to maintenance and PDCA refers to improvement; these become [...]
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Posted in Category: Lean Leadership / Change Management, Breakthrough Lean Transformation / Kaikaku | 1 Comment »
January 16th, 2007 - by Mark Edmondson
A few years ago, I lamented about the most common excuses our Affiliates hear from executives for not investing in training their people and improving their business (see the President’s column in this issue of The LEAN Executive).
The top four I mentioned then:
“Our people aren’t ready for change”
“It requires too much time from management”
“We’re too [...]
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Posted in Category: Lean Leadership / Change Management, Developing People / Continuous Improvement, Executive Coaching | No Comments »
January 14th, 2007 - by Mark Edmondson
Our client continues describing how staying close to operations helped with their problem solving (see part 1):
“When we began our lean journey a few weeks ago, we decided to start on the production floor with a specific value stream. We wanted to see results quickly, so we chose a limited scope for our initial [...]
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Posted in Category: Lean Leadership / Change Management, Supply Chain & Logistics, Lean Manufacturing | No Comments »
January 2nd, 2007 - by Mark Edmondson
Before the holidays, we talked about staying close to operations, and one specific habit to help do that, The Gemba Walk.
Since then, a client agreed to share his experience with us:
“My staff was reviewing the performance of an automated guided vehicle (AGV) system we implemented earlier in the year. Although initially it reduced the [...]
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Posted in Category: Lean Leadership / Change Management, Supply Chain & Logistics, Lean Manufacturing | No Comments »
December 19th, 2006 - by Mark Edmondson
Over the years I’ve noticed several habits that are common among the most successful operations executives. One habit is that they stay close to operations. They walk the floor frequently, know many of their workers by name and have a good perspective of what’s really happening.
With executive “dashboards”, real-time reporting, endless meetings and [...]
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Posted in Category: Lean Leadership / Change Management, Executive Coaching | 1 Comment »
December 13th, 2006 - by Mark Edmondson
Mark Graban recently posted about a Fortune Magazine interview with GE’s CEO, Jeff Immelt. While defending GE’s relentless practice of offshore production, Immelt uses two products as examples, jet engines and appliances. Although certainly not Immelt’s point, comparing these two product lines highlights an irony with their supply chains:
- 80% of their [...]
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Posted in Category: Supply Chain & Logistics | No Comments »
December 8th, 2006 - by Mark Edmondson
A lesson for all of us that we witnessed during a recent visit with a new client. The owner of this small ($90 million) private manufacturing company is a Jack Welch fan: read all of his books, and goes by the GE Way…including the “rank your employees and fire the bottom 10%” rule.
The [...]
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Posted in Category: Lean Leadership / Change Management | 1 Comment »
December 8th, 2006 - by Mark Edmondson
Note: This is a continuation the Marginal Accounting post describing a dialog between a manufacturing executive and me.
M: So you want to simplify how you manage costs, while at the same time provide accurate cost information to support decision making. Like most manufacturing companies, you’re now using a cost accounting scheme that [...]
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Posted in Category: Lean Accounting & Management Systems | No Comments »
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