The Opportunity of Bureaucracy
11 December 2008
"Bureaucracy" and "opportunity"... normally those aren't symbiotic terms unless you're a glutton for punishment, but in to…
Yet Another Regulatory Nightmare
10 December 2008
Earlier this year we were all up in arms about lead contamination in toys and other children's products coming from China. Time for more regulatio…
Australia Learns About Outsourcing Costs
9 December 2008
Slowly but surely companies are beginning to realize that there is more to competitiveness than just cheap labor. Chinese wages and salaries are a…
Focusing on the Small, Forgetting the Big
8 December 2008
The Detroit Three car companies, and all companies for that matter, are taking sometimes draconian steps to cut costs. Some examples: Over the past…
Should Ford Learn From... Ford?
7 December 2008
Believe it or not, South America has long been a test bed for new auto production ideas. Many automakers use South America to try out new manufactu…
Newt on the Toyota Production System
5 December 2008
A hat tip to Jim Huntzinger for letting several of us know about this interview of Newt Gingrich on Fox's Hannity & Colmes. We mentioned Newt…
Lean Meets ISO... Only in California
4 December 2008
California can be an odd place where odd things happen. And so it was the other day when I came across the following in a nearby parking lot. Nice ca…
The Power of Visualizing People
2 December 2008
To many managers, possibly even leaders, people are just numbers and data and costs. Until you are forced to come to the realization that they are...…