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Jim Womack on how lean compares with Six Sigma, Re-engineering, TOC, TPM, etc., etc.
It amazes me, but I still get lots of questions about how “lean” compares with Six Sigma, Total Productive Maintenance,…
Read articleCreating the Course and Tools for a Lean Accounting System
A unit of Parker Hannifin used a financial kaizen and other lean accounting techniques to bridge the gaps between shop-floor…
View case studyWe Have Been (Lean) Thinking
In the many years since we launched Lean Thinking, events amply confirm our long-held view that managers will try anything…
Read articleLean Thinking for Air Travel
Recently I got a call from an aide to Don Carty at American Airlines (their Chairman who resigned this past…
Read articleLSG Sky Chefs Caters to New Market Realities
Business at airline caterer LSG Sky Chefs dropped 30% when airlines cut flights after the terrorist attacks on September 11,…
View case studyHere’s to Toyota
More than twenty years ago Dan Jones and I made an important discovery. On a trip to Japan we concluded…
Read articleTaking a Value Stream Walk at Firm A
I was out walking through a company this past week, something I often do. The firm I visited had asked…
Read articleLEI looks for success stories to share
I routinely end my talks by offering to give anyone 15 minutes of fame in my and Dan Jones’s next…
Read articleMove Your Operations to China? Do some lean math first.
I recently got a phone call from a reporter for The Wall Street Journal with a simple but provocative question:…
Read articleSeasoned Lean Effort Avoids “Flavor-of-the-Month” Pitfall
What comes first in a lean transformation? What comes next? Where do tools like six sigma fit? Here's an overview…
View case studyYear-end Message About the State of the Lean Community
As I've noted before with some sadness, economic distress is good for lean thinking. Taiichi Ohno said long ago that…
Read articleSubstituting Money for Value Stream Management
I've been traveling again since I last wrote, this time to visit a household-name American company trying to pursue perfection…
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