Following are a couple of the many articles published over the last several years. Keep an eye on this page and look for previews of new articles before they appear elsewhere.
If you would like a reprint of an article you have seen somewhere, send us an email describing it and we will do our best to track it down and get a copy to you.
Lean Enterprise if a different management model - an entirely different approach to business. It begins with Lean Accounting and managing the business to drive continuous enhancement of customer defined value
One widely discussed aspect of lean manufacturing is performance measurement. This makes sense because it is probably the most important element of manufacturing management. You get what you measure. Because most companies measure performance by metrics based in traditional accounting principles, they get traditional -- that is to say, not very lean -- results.
When Joe Orlicky implemented the first MRP system at J.I. Case in Racine, Wisconsin, Dwight Eisenhower was president. Bill Gates was ready to begin kindergarten. Hand held calculators, personal computers, color monitors, FedEx, fax machines and most of the interstate highway system were still in the future. The last of the Ford Edsels were still on the lots, and no one but the most ardent car aficionados knew who Toyota was.
When Frederick W. Taylor descended on Johnson Steel in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1898, he brought along his stop watch, of course, his unique slide rules and reams of multi-columned forms developed over the years – the tools of Scientific Management. When he was rather unceremoniously shown the door three years later, a little less than half of Johnson’s payroll was working to standards set to three or four decimal points. He and his minions had analyzed and timed just about everyone, but this was the normal result of Taylorizing a factory.
The terms “Lean Manufacturing” and “Japanese” are hardly synonymous. This may come as a shock to a number of manufacturers, and even more consultants, who seem to think that a prerequisite to becoming lean is rote memorization of the Japanese language. In fact, the originators of the Toyota Production System were very forthcoming that they learned it all from Henry Ford. Most Americans think that Ford’s great contribution to manufacturing was the assembly line, but there is no mention of assembly lines in Shigeo Shingo or Taiichi Ohno’s writings about the Toyota manufacturing powerhouse.
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