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 October includes:
The featured article is from Tom Shaw and is titled The Need for Speed: Building Early Momentum on the Path to Continuous Improvement The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.
One of the often underappreciated keys to a successful continuous improvement effort is getting off to a fast start. It is not a coincidence that in baseball the leadoff hitter is often very fast and a good base stealer. Baseball managers know that getting runners in scoring position early helps to build momentum and get runs on the board early. The same holds true in continuous improvement efforts.
Think of the projects that you have been associated with in the past that dragged on for months. Did you find yourself in long planning sessions? Was the team hesitant to implement until all the details had been flushed out and the perfect mousetrap created? When you finally did implement, did the plan come together exactly as scripted, or did you have to make adjustments along the way to get where you needed to go?
The featured book this month is Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness, and Superior Results by Mike Rother. The following is a brief summary, click here for more information.
This game-changing book puts you behind the curtain at Toyota, providing new insight into the legendary automaker's management practices and offering practical guidance for leading and developing people in a way that makes the best use of their brainpower.
Drawing on six years of research into Toyota's employee-management routines, Toyota Kata examines and elucidates, for the first time, the company's organizational routines--called kata--that power its success with continuous improvement and adaptation. The book also reaches beyond Toyota to explain issues of human behavior in organizations.
Gemba Academy has added a Quick Changeover (SMED) course to their Lean Package. Take a look at how Gemba Academy is revolutionizing online training, on demand, in High Definition HD quality.
We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:
- PowerPoint Presentations: Over 50 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, quality, enterprise, and safety concepts.
- 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.