Decision Making Chaos on the Deepwater Horizon
It appears clear now that the Deepwater Horizon, the Transocean drilling rig under contract with BP, suffered from poorly designed decision processes.
Read MoreManagement Waste – Get Lean and Eliminate It!
One of the core ideas of Lean Management is the elimination of waste. This usually means eliminating unnecessary tasks, motions, inventory, rework, etc. However, the new challenge for lean management is to improve the efficiency...
Read MoreToyota: Did they believe too much in their own reputation?
The Washington Post today reports Toyota’s own explanation of their failure. By their own account, they put growth ahead of quality. They did not have the sense of urgency to respond to customer feedback. Again, nothing in this condemns shop floor practices, the essence of the Toyota Production System, or “lean”, rather it condemns the priority and actions of senior managers.
Read MoreSo What Happened to Toyota???
Last week I was at a client and I was explaining some point of lean culture and I used an example from Toyota. The union president who was in attendance stood up and said “I’ll tell you one thing, you better not tell us to do anything because Toyota did it. Ten people in the past week have come up to me and told me that we aren’t doing anything because Toyota does it.” That about sums up the sentiment out there.
Read MoreSustainable Wealth
Among other things, and the BIG thing I am working on now is a re-write of the New Capitalism book. So, why am I re-writing? That book had already been through several revisions and it took me a while to realize that the one...
Read MoreThe Financial Crisis – Blaming the Person for Failures of the System
Every media outlet has been struggling to assign blame for current financial crisis. Obviously there was greed. There was incompetence. There was dishonesty. There was arrogance. And many other human failures. Politicians have...
Read MoreThe Strategic Value Stream – How Organizations Create Wealth
The purpose of corporations is to create wealth… not only financial wealth for stockholders, but total wealth for society. When corporations build competence in their employees they are creating wealth. When they innovate...
Read MoreLean Organization Requires Alignment of Social and Technical Systems
The more experience one has with Lean manufacturing or organization, the more clear it is that lean is a system in which both human and technical systems have been aligned.
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