I'm really delighted to have found the gang-of seven blogs (Kathleen Fasanella sent me), I'm totally in love with lean principles!

Compliments aside, this co-blogging effort could be easier to use:

1) making sure you read everybody's entry is difficult: not everyone has the neat list of the other members, and for those who do, it's in different places, and the names are in different orders. I'm not good at remembering names, so I've visited several sites twice and I still don't think I've read them all. Could you standardize that, please?

2) some bloggers post several entries a day. This, combined with the lack of standardized titles for the Project Kaizen entries, makes it hard to figure out which entries are part of the project. Not that I mind reading their other entries, too.

Great, I hope we have some good discussion here and on my blog, as well! I've been blocked by your old platform when I've wanted to post a comment before, so I'm glad you've opened this up to us.

I've been in manufacturing for many yearsa and seen so many "management by best seller" fads come and go. LEAN is here to stay because it is common sense.

this is the us of a not japan

this is the internet not the us of a

Lean was cast on us by those who want our manufacturing to fail. It doesn't deal with real world got-yas whoops and process variations.

It is perfect for left-brains who can't see the big picture or see over the next hill. It has destroyed our ability to get parts for unplanned emergencies. It has clogged our streets with small order deliveries. It is causing a front-end bulge by a constant flow of reorder/restock demands. It has eaten into our profits because of loss of volume discounts.

Estimate your needs. Plan for the worst. Buy enough to cover all possibilities (the volume discounts cover the carrying cost). And use all the additional free time you now have to do something that doesn't just "save" but creates something "new" of value.

Bill Trump

Bill,

I'm sorry to hear lean isn't working for you. I don't know who wants your manufacturing to fail, but they should be ashamed.

Perhaps Toyota's just in time delivery schemes have clogged the roads with frequent small delivery trucks. Yet it's also true that they plowed some of those millions in profits from their lean efforts to creating a viable product and market for hybrid gas-electric vehicles practically single-handedly.

Certainly create something new of value, but do it while conserving your cash, energy and resources as best as you can, while planning for real-world eventualities.