Industry Week

IndustryWeek, the magazine for whom I now right a bi-monthly columned titled Lessons from the Road, just released the 2011 class of the Manufacturing Hall of Fame. Our co-founder of the Lean Learning Center, Dennis Pawley, was named in the Class of 2010. I won’t spoil the whole list, which

My latest column for Industry Week, Lessons from the Road, titled Going to the Gemba has been posted. Here is an excerpt: Going to the gemba has become popular for the simple reason that it is powerfully effective. But there is more to it than getting up from your desk, as

My 2nd installment of Lessons from the Road, my new column for Industry Week is now available. This month the topic is Sustaining Your 5S Efforts. One of my early columns for Assembly Magazine titled Planning 5S? First Know Why! 5 years later, it’s still one of the most popular

Recently Steve Minter of Industry Week interviewed a range of people for an article he titled 10 Management Traps – and How to Avoid Them. The ten traps he lists are: 1. Not ‘Nipping it in the Bud’ 2. Squelching the Flow of Bad News 3. Doing Drop-Down Work 4.

This month I am starting a new column for Industry Week. The title of the column is Lessons from the Road. Lessons from the Road is the subtitle of our book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean. In this new column, I hope to provide pragmatic and actionable advice for companies

We’re happy to see that Dennis Pawley, our co-founder of the Lean Learning Center, was inducted to the Industry Week Hall of Fame. For those who have worked for him, few leaders have had more of an impact on an organization than Denny. He is a personal hero to many,

Recently Industry Week published an article called Lean Confusion. In it was the following data from their surveys: What really shocks me is that 25 percent of companies feel that their lean journey is “complete”. How is this possible? Here’s my real struggle with this idea. If they have gotten

A jobless recovery – that is perhaps the most optimistic I would describe today’s environment. I’m not very optimistic about the economy on the whole. For starters (and we could go on), there is $535 billion in commercial real estate loans coming due over the next year. What do you

“Sponsor our program and reach 100s of prospective clients” – I hear it all the time. We get calls and emails and mailers to sponsor conferences, programs, special reports, and so on. But we always think in terms of value. I can’t understand what value sponsoring the continental breakfast really

Are you heading to a conference soon? We’re coming up on conference season for many organizations. I observe most people not getting their full value out of the process. I will share why at the end of this post. I have my own schedule. In April alone, I will be