One of the primary objectives of Lean is to achieve smooth continuous flow of material through the process. If there are bottlenecks within your process, they can inhibit flow, cause inventories, and prevent throughput from matching customer demand (Takt). In order to make progress towards Lean goals, bottleneck resources must be identified, managed and improved. From a…
What a difference a year makes… Looking back at my last year’s Holiday article called 2008 “The year of quicksand” I made several references to the rip-saw in the economy and the plummet of almost every known economic indicator. Some pundits were even speaking of an “economic Armageddon”. Everything is still not back to the “before” –…
Possibility Deficit Disorder (PDD) is the pervasive and persistent experience of ‘no possibility’ now, and no attractive prospects in the future. PDD is widespread in modern times. At a national level, it is evidenced in the lack of ambitious ventures in technology development, industrial policy, educating necessary resources, infrastructure planning, national security, and transportation. PDD can be observed…
Small teams in large corporations can ‘out small’ today’s successful smaller players, and win big. Smaller competitors to today’s largest corporations are consistently winning in customer satisfaction ratings without the so-called economies of scale associated with large (frequently out-sourced) customer care centers. For the largest companies in some key sectors – such as telecommunications, technology, andfinancial services – there is the potential…
In the opening scene of the legendary film Casablanca, an employee walks intently through the casino with a piece of paper in hand. The employee arrives at a table and reaches across to hand the paper to an unseen recipient. All the viewer can see is the recipient writing his signature authorizing a payment of 1,000…
It seems that every day brings with it a new way to pass information – some to varying degrees of want. With a constant stream of data and touch-points, when does it all become a blended and deafening cacophony of “noise”? How can one “squelch” out the static and focus on that which is truly important? How…
