The High-Velocity Edge Is Here!

Update:  Steven J. Spear has been awarded the Philip Crosby Medal for his book “The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition” according to a Press release from ASQ—the world’s largest network of quality resources and experts (Milwaukee, WI March 2, 2011). We have raved about the book “Chasing the Rabbit” written by Steven J. Spear […]

Flawless Execution – “This Is It” – Practice Makes Perfect

We are often encouraged to look beyond our own business models to expand our horizons or to simply gain a different perspective.  Music is one of my personal areas of interest in the outside world and I have learned to appreciate and value the many genres of music that exist today.  As a lead guitar player for a number of […]

Lean Sensations – A taste of reality

We are all familiar with the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words”.  While it is easy to get caught up in data analysis and reports, this adage holds true for first hand experience as well.  It could even be said that some experiences are simply beyond description. – you have to see and “taste” it for yourself.  Words […]

Lean Recalls – Compromising Safety?

Is there ever a time when risk outweighs the real fix?   As we are quickly learning from the latest news regarding Toyota’s proclaimed “savings” through limited safety recalls, the answer is “NO”.  The details of the story surrounding Toyota’s knowledge of the mounting safety concerns and the Toyota’s defense is very disturbing.  Toyota has responded by stating “Our first priority is the safety of […]

Lean, OEE, and How to beat the “Law of Diminishing Returns”

Are your lean initiatives falling prey to the Law of Diminishing Returns?  Waning returns may soon be followed by apathy as the “new” initiative gets old.  For those who have not studied economics or are not familiar with the term, it is defined by Wikepedia as follows: The law states “that we will get less and less extra output when we add additional […]

Quality is Priceless

The price tag for Toyota’s recent recall campaigns is estimated to be more than $2 Billion and the loss in share holder value is likely many times more than this.  Yet we remain optimistic and anticipate that Toyota will make it through this crisis.  We can only imagine what this kind of money could buy if wasn’t spent on repairing vehicles. In our […]

Lean Analytics and a little TRIZ

We are encouraged to see a significantly increasing interest in lean and agile strategy.  As we have emphasized in previous posts, the culture and work environment are as critical to the success of your initiatives as are the specific techniques, methods, and / or technologies that you will choose to use.  One of our favorite phrases to put our work environment into perspective […]

The Zeigarnik Effect and Lean

Have you heard of the Zeigarnik Effect?  If you have, you’re probably among the few of us that can appreciate how the Zeigarnik effect can affect our thinking processes.  What application could this possibly have with lean?    Consider that the human brain views an unanswered question the same as an incomplete task.  The brain must satisfy it’s innate desire to answer the question.  Lean is […]

Lean Breaking Through Paralysis

Welcome to 2010!  We wish all of our visitors the very best of success in 2010.  Now that 2009 is behind is really behind us, we can start looking forward to the opportunities and challenges ahead in 2010. Page Updates: As regular users of Excel we are always looking for excellent and trustworthy resources to help us in our day to day operations.  […]

22 Seconds to Burn – Excel VBA Teaches Lean Execution

Background: VBA for Excel has once again provided the opportunity to demonstrate some basic lean tenets.  The methods used to produce the required product or solution can yield significant savings in time and ultimately money.  The current practice is not necessarily the best practice in your industry.  In manufacturing, trivial or minute differences in methods deployed become more apparent during mass production or as […]