Happy Thanksgiving…..Be thankful for Lean

Happy Thanksgiving from the Lean Is Good blog.  As I reflect back, there is so much to be thankful for it amazes me.  Often times in our blogospheres we rant and rave about all the negative things like lack of leadership, overburdened workloads, lack of commitment, etc.  However, take a minute to think about all [...]

Unextended Lean – The Whirlpool Experience

Last August Whirlpool announced it would be closing the Evansville, Indiana plant and building a new plant in Mexico.  A recent article here talks about how they have been removing equipment slowly from the plant and re-installing it elsewhere, all while continuing to make product.  Evolving Excellence has had previous posts regarding Whirlpool and this [...]

Lean Selling Anti-Lean?

In the last few months I’ve been coming across articles from Toyota Material Handling touting their AGV or automated guided vehicles.  This particular article in ThomasNet News describes showing off the total system.

Hansei and Building

It’s the end of the year and a time when many businesses and people reflect on the previous year or years.  This reflection or hansei as known in the lean world is critical to walking down the path of success.  I inadvertently did some hansei last weekend as I was building some shelves in our [...]

Lean Implementation – When to Pull

Kevin Meyer at the Evolving Excellence blog does a nice series called 5 Questions in which he asks various people associated with lean five questions (good name for this series). I find myself implementing either lean or continuous improvement at my third organization and something that Michael Balle talked about a few months ago when [...]