Good Explanation of 3D Printing
It’s worth suffering the rough the beginning slides to get to The Motley Fool’s video explaining 3D printing and the impact it will have on some aspects of manufacturing. Their ‘End of Made-In-China’...
View ArticleWhy Planning is Over-Rated
Tom Johnson talks quite a bit about the importance of focusing on Management by Means, rather than Management by Objectives – focus more on improving the organizational ability to do things well, and...
View ArticleCash is King
Best Buy, the electronics retailer struggling to find a way to compete with the Internet, has announced that its cash flow is much better than expected. The reason – some $300 million worth of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Organizing to Achieve the Strategy
The lean organizational structure has been a topic of intense discussion over the last several years, and one in which there is far from consensus. That organizing along value stream lines is the right...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bringing Sales & Marketing to the Party
The folks in sales and marketing functions seem to be the last ones to want to change to become part of an integrated business approach. No big surprise really. While it is not unusual to see...
View ArticleRunning the Air Force Like GM
Air Force Lieutenant General Christopher Bogdan made headlines a few weeks ago when he publicly bashed Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney – the two big contractors for the f-35 program. “What I see...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rationalizing Waste
The folks at a retailer called Everlane posted a chart showing the cost structure of a designer T Shirt. It set off a litany of protest from folks in the retail world proclaiming that Everlane just...
View ArticleThe Monkey Culture
In 1967 a researcher at the University of Wisconsin by the name of Gordon R. Stephenson wrote about an experiment in which he went a long way toward explaining why the ‘we’ve always done it that way’...
View ArticleThe World is A’Changin’
There is a very good article in the New York Times (good because it echoes something I have been saying for some time) about cutting out the middlemen. “When the founders of a start-up that sells...
View ArticleChange everything but your wife and children
The popular notion is that young people are somehow naturally more knowledgeable and adept when it comes to technology. I have found that this really means they are better at its application, but...
View ArticleThe Case for Value Streams
A piece in the HBR blog the other day serves as a great case for the value stream structure. To summarize it, the writer, George Stalk, describes a family owned construction business that was doing...
View ArticleLeaving Japan Behind
Rahul Garga wrote a piece concerning the Japanese economy in Seeking Alpha the other day called “Why Japan Might Find it Hard To Ease Out of This One”. Among his points were: “Japan once held a major...
View ArticleWhat if They Have a Party and No One Comes?
Walmart has announced plans to buy an additional $50 billion worth of American made goods over the next decade. “This is a commitment around manufacturing and more economic renewal. We see it as a...
View ArticleSales & Marketing: Get in the Game!
It is high time the folks in sales and marketing got in the game. It seems to be more true in smaller and medium sized business, but an appalling number of the people in the customer facing part of the...
View ArticleEnough ‘Internal Customer’ Nonsense Already
In 1988 I wrote a workbook for the Emerson division I worked in called “Know Your Customer”, full of the usual stuff about identifying the next person or department in the chain who was your ‘internal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Eco-Self Deception
This is the Massive McMuffin – bacon and sausage, egg, cheese … the works. Start the day off with one of these and you’re better than halfway to your daily fat intake before you even get out of the...
View ArticleThis Tricky Consulting Business
In an amazing feat of prognostication a lean consulting organization (which shall remain nameless since the documents I saw from them were most likely protected by some sort of confidentiality...
View ArticleThe Transformation of Fast Fashion From Genius to Abomination
More Americans died in the Civil War than is all wars we have fought in – combined. While the majority of the Civil War deaths were due to disease, the actual battle mortality was carnage an a scale...
View ArticleSystems Thinking Is The Key to Excellence
According to Wikipedia: “Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things, regarded as systems, influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems...
View ArticleA Reader Asks .. Innovation and Value Streams
I stopped at a lean conference while in Europe, because Philips was presenting. Two different speakers said co-locating technology with sales / marketing will destroy technical learning. I am...
View Article
