An interesting article over at Industry Week:
This is the article I mentioned for which I was interviewed a while back.
New Lean Management Article
If you are so inclined, you can read my latest article on the fundamentals and importance of management in the lean journey over on my web site.
Two cents worth of coffee
Kevin wrote a piece the other day likening the Keurig single cup system to lean. Lots of good comments. Seems to me many of those suggesting that making less than full pots with old style drip coffee makers and the French press advocates (including the author of the lengthy email Kevin and I received argiung in favor of EOQ and forecasting to solve the problem of coffee waste) ignored the part of Kevin's post that mentioned "the varying demands of a crowd".
Making a partial pot in a drip maker is efficient enough so long as there is only one kind of coffee needed. Introduce two products, however - she drinks regular and he drinks decaf, for instance - and the math changes. Brewing a partial pot of one, then cleaning out the pot and reloading it for the other type wastes a lot of time. The Keuring beats that approach hands down. Having more than one product is the norm in production and Kevin's analogy of the Keuring system to one piece flow in the factory is right on point -IMHO, of course.
The Unlean Education System
One reason the cost of a college education is totally out of whack relative to the value it provides is the propensity for academia to create bureaucracy. This article about "The Troubling Dean to Professor Ratio" over at Business Week should leave you shaking your head.
Original: http://www.idatix.com/manufacturing-leadership/random-notes/