Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website. The new content is featured in the monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.
New content in April includes:
The featured article is by Michael Balle and is titled The Psychology of Lean Management. The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.
When was the last time you remember thinking “I was wrong about this”? Yesterday? Last week? Never? Let’s conduct a short thought experiment: force yourself to think of an instance, any instance, where you were clearly wrong. How does it feel? Are you already lining up the mitigating circumstances (anyone would have done the same in this situation / that’s who I am)? Or the upsides (in the end, it’s a good thing that I was wrong because I’ve learned / cleared the air/ made things move, etc.)? If you are, don’t worry: this is perfectly normal and a sign of sanity. Only the clinically depressed are truly honest about themselves.
Our brain does many very useful things for us and, among the many services it provides, it works full time at protecting our egos. We don’t make mistakes. When we do, we didn’t really (“mistakes were made” as politicians are wont to phrase it). And in, any case, these so-called mistakes were, in fact both unavoidable and lead to some silver lining. This hard-wired response expresses itself in how our internal dialogue frames awkward situations and, by and large, it pulls us through the day. Indeed there is evidence that people with the fewer doubts are overall happier (though not necessarily their close associates). It has only one drawback – it slows learning and discovery.
The featured book this month is Liquid Lean by Raymond Floyd. The following is a brief summary, click here for more information.
Liquid industries, including reactive chemical factories, petroleum and metal refining, food and bio-pharma production are ones that could make great use of the concepts of Lean. However, Lean manufacturing is not widely used in these industries, largely because they are naturally conservative and thanks to the times, more financially stable than most, so great case stories of successful Lean implementation are rare. This book will be the first to offer details and examples of adapting Lean manufacturing to liquid industries.
Our partner Gemba Academy is just released a new 12 video module course titled Lean Lingo Explained, where Brad Pitt takes viewers through an analysis of the roots of lean termino
logy. Brad even deconstructs some of the original Japanese characters. Learn more here.
We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:
- PowerPoint Presentations: Over 115 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, lean leadership, lean industries, quality, lean enterprise, and safety concepts. Special promotion: purchase a Package or Bundle of presentations and receive the Gemba Academy Lean Starter Package DVD ($97 value) at no cost.
- Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
- Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
- Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
- Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.
For all you LinkedIn junkies, we have created a LinkedIn group for Superfactory, which now has over 3,500 members. Join the group to
network with other Superfactory enthusiasts and to show our logo on your profile. If you haven't explored LinkedIn, check it out to see why over 17 million professionals use it for networking.
We are always looking for new articles and other content. Contact us via the Superfactory website if you would like to contribute to our knowledge base.