Cost Subtraction March 29, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, strategy.Tags: customer focus, strategy
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The Old Lean Dude (aka Bruce Hamilton) recounts that prior to the 1980s, nobody questioned price increases, but that when the 1980s rolled around, people began requesting price decreases. That meant a new way of pricing products, with the formula: Profit = Price – Cost. While many companies handle this through outsourcing and leveraging suppliers, other companies focused on small scale changes to handle price decreases.
For more from Bruce’s insightful article, please head on over to his blog.
Takt Times and Falling Sales: How to Respond? March 29, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in lean, strategy.Tags: lean, strategy
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Michael Baudin, in response to a reader question about falling sales, explains at his blog that takt time is not just customer demand, but the division of production time by demand. Fluctuations in sales need to be distinguished from major changes, the latter of which needs addressing. A major downturn, for example, would mandate reducing production. Many people struggle with how to deal with lean implementation during lean economic times, and this adds an important point or two.
For Michael’s response at his blog, head on over here.
Culture vs. Strategy Is A False Choice March 29, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in culture, strategy.Tags: culture, strategy
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According to Bob Frisch at FastCompany, the growing trend in business literature has been that culture is a greater determining factor in success than strategy. But Bob contends that this is a false set of choices. Both matter. Bob provides a number of case examples, including Southwest Airlines. Sure, their workers are friendly, funny, and encouraging, but their strategy of a young fleet and short flights is an important and successful strategy.
To read Bob’s article, please go here.
Lean Chickens, 1, Fat Lions, 0 February 27, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in lean, manufacturing, strategy, supply chain.Tags: lean, manufacturing, strategy, supply chain
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Bill Waddell presents an interesting study of production. Golden Bear, Ltd., has received the contract to produce Pride the Lion, the official mascot of the British Olympic Team. Pride is being produced in China because it has been argued that he is too expensive to produce elsewhere. Pride retails for $20. Meanwhile, Montana-based American company West Paw Design makes a sustainable, fluffy product called a Spring Chicken that is larger than Pride –and it retails for $14. The difference? Lean-based West Paw oversees everything itself, while Pride must be overseen by offices in both London and China.
For Bill’s very thought-provoking article, head here.
Lessons Learned From Kodak: Don’t Get Trapped by Your Core Business Model February 27, 2012
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in strategy.Tags: strategy
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Kodak did everything it needed to do on the road to bankruptcy –just not enough. Kodak correctly predicted the emergence of electronic imaging over traditional film, and poured resources into making the change. But it didn’t go fast enough or far enough, and was thus forced to file for bankruptcy in January. Kodak put too many eggs in one basket, and didn’t move fast enough to meet the change in technology.
Read the IndustryWeek article here.
Four Destructive Myths Most Companies Still Live By December 19, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in personal productivity, strategy.Tags: personal productivity, strategy
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Tony Schwartz at Harvard Business Review has written an article about the myths that companies still cling to. He lists them and explains why they are myths. Among them is the idea that multitasking is a good, critical thing. Multitasking often involves what is called switching time. For example, instead of paying attention at a meeting, you might be checking your e-mail instead, thereby missing important information.
For Tony’s analysis of this, and the other three myths, head over here.
Illogical Progression December 18, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in lean, strategy.Tags: lean, strategy
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The Old Lean Dude follows up his September post on policy deployment (also known as a roadmap for improvement) with another where he defines that it is important to know where you are going. Furthermore, the road map must be concurrent with the lean journey. As the journey progresses, so does the map.
For more of Bruck Hamilton’s thoughts on policy deployment, head here.
How Bad Plans and “Good Ideas” Ruin Meetings December 18, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in leadership, strategy.Tags: leadership, strategy
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David Allen, writing at FastCompany for the magazine’s Leadership Hall of Fame Series, talks about planning and ideas. David defines five steps your brain takes when tackling just about any task, including defining the purpose and principles, and outcome visioning. These steps should be taken and understood in order to plan correctly.
I’ve used David Allens techniques for a couple years now, and it has had a remarkable impact on my productivity and organization.
For the complete list, and David’s full article, head here.
Helping Your Employees Find Their Flow December 18, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in personal productivity, strategy, workforce.Tags: personal productivity, strategy, workforce
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Managers can help employees find their flow, or the ability to become fully immersed in any activity being undertaken. Among those ways are focusing on long-term and short-term goals, as well as challenging workers instead of giving them routine work that requires little oversight from management.
Head here for the article.
GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Plant Used Dark Days of Recession to Get Better December 18, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in automotive, lean, strategy.Tags: automotive, lean, strategy
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During the worst days of the recession, General Motors’s Detroit-Hamtramck Plant decided to focus on people, retooling the plant to turn out Chevy Volts and other electric cars. Through continuous improvement, standardized work, laying out the facility in a lean fashion, insourcing strategically, and adopting other lean strategies, the change was a success. In the process, waste has been reduced 15% and the company saves a million dollars annually simply by having switched certain riveting robots.
Check out the IndustryWeek article about the change here.
Work Smart: Live and Work With a Bias Toward Action December 18, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in leadership, strategy.Tags: leadership, strategy
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Scott Belsky, writing at FastCompany, set out to discover the best process for managing projects. He discovered a common theme about action, and talks about it in a video. He explains how the most successful projects have an orientation toward action.
Watch Scott’s creative and informative video here.
Work Smart: Overcoming “Reactionary Workflow” To Make Your Vision A Reality November 17, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in personal productivity, strategy.Tags: personal productivity, strategy
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Long-term goals can be undone by short-term obstacles or distractions. Scott Belsky, in a video from Fast Company, talks about how reactionary workflow can be overcome. Among the ideas he offers is making sure to take the reins on how you manage your work, and not become subservient to things like answering e-mails for others.
Take a look at the text and video here.
How to Reverse-Engineer Criticism November 17, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in customer focus, strategy.Tags: customer focus, strategy
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Maurice Ewing, writing for Harvard Business Review at Bloomberg Businessweek, has noted that instead of fighting criticism and becoming overly-defensive, companies should use criticism to their advantage. Ewing cites Wal-Mart as an example. Rather than handle issues or criticisms in a reactionary fashion, Wal-Mart should preempt criticisms or create plans to handle those criticisms, such as finding ways to keep prices low without having to cut already-low employee pay.
Check out the analysis article here.
13 Questions to Assess Lean Competence in an Organization November 17, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in lean, Lean Thinking, strategy.Tags: lean, Lean Thinking, strategy
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Jon Miller’s post on Gemba Panta Rei talks about lean competence that can be assessed through the use of insightful questions. Among these questions: “Are problems hidden or made visible?” “Are people viewed as short-term costs or long-term investments?” “Is getting to work on a plan quickly more important than slowly forming an effective process?”
Check out Mr. Miller’s post, as well as the rest of the assessment questions here.
Building Consensus? Try Standard Work June 2, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Standard Work, strategy, team development.Tags: standard work, strategy, teams
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Gaining consensus in the workplace on a direction to move in can be a very difficult process. Making the process standard work can be a slow but consistent method for consensus: “a clear method by which a person can build a case for the initiative, communicate it to colleagues, incorporate their feedback, gain their support, and thereby move forward.” The A3 process replaces large, messy meetings with simple one–on–one meetings between people.
Check out the TimeBack blog post here.
The Stop-Doing List February 4, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in personal productivity, strategy.Tags: personal productivity, strategy
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Two authors at Bloomberg Businessweek urge readers to stop making “to-do” lists, and make “stop-doing” lists. In other words, jot down essential things rather than important things. Part of it is sacrifice. A smart company, for example, will know what kind of clients, engagements, and employees to avoid.
Check out the Bloomberg Businessweek article here.
Lean Won’t Work in 2011 January 22, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in economy, lean, strategy.Tags: economy, leadership, strategy
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My good friend and colleague Greg Fields was interviewed for an insightful piece in IndustryWeek recently. If your company survived 2010, chances are you’re here to stay –according to Greg. Innovation and tweaking only get your so far. Investing in entirely new systems is key. Small incremental improvements are fine, but much of the business landscape has changed, and your business model may need an overhaul using radical improvement.
The editors at IndustryWeek certainly chose a title to attract eyeballs, but it may be a bit misleading. Greg describes how continuous improvement, kaizen, may be inappropriate for some business models, and that they need a radical makeover, also known as kaikaku. Both approaches, it turns out, are part of lean process improvement, so lean will continue to be universally applicable to all businesses in 2011, as it has been for half a century. We should not forget that the Toyota Motor Works began as a radical reconception of the mass production model just after World War II, as were the beginnings of the Toyota Production System.
Check out the IndustryWeek article here.
Unilever Tries to Double Its Sales While Halving Its Environmental Footprint January 10, 2011
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in green business, strategy.Tags: green business, strategy
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Unilever – the multinational corporation whose brands include Lipton and Dove Soap – has vowed it is on track to make consumption sustainable. To do this, for example, Unilever says it wants to sustainably source 100% of its agricultural raw materials. The multinational corporation held a show in New York, which concluded with a discussion panel on the economy and sustainability. While some applauded Unilever’s independent actions, others took a more pessimistic view, saying that Unilever must use its weight and power to influence governments and nongovernmental organizations to achieve sustainable ends.
Check out the FastCompany analysis here.
How to Design a Lean Operation at a One Day Takt September 24, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Lean Tools & Techniques, strategy.Tags: Lean Tools & Techniques, strategy
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Jon Miller over at Gemba Panta Rei takes on the challenge of constructing a one day takt lean operation in an August 23 post. For example, if it is a simple eight-hour process to complete a unit, Mr. Miller notes that it is a simple “start the day, finish the day” flow. But if the unit requires more than eight hours, flowlines and workstations need to be visibly divided into section takts until the unit is completed.
Check out Mr. Miller’s article here.
Motivation and Incentives in the Lean Company June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Lean Thinking, strategy, workforce.Tags: Lean Thinking, strategy, workforce
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Motivation, incentive, and engagement are all important in lean organizations. Jamie Flinchbaugh notes that many lean strategies and tactics interface with motivation and incentive. He provides a list of ideas, including using the dreaded and decried annual review to establish a set of goals towards which individuals can work. For example, these goals can include forcing employees out of their comfort zones in order to examine, observe, learn, and improve.
Check out the rest of Mr. Flinchbaugh’s incredibly helpful article here.
The New Plan for Project Plans: Less Planning June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in change management, strategy.Tags: change management, strategy
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Sometimes companies will focus too much on planning, and will miss out on some excellent opportunities because the conditions for those opportunities aren’t programmed into the plans. Seth Kahan in his new book “Getting Change Right: How Leaders Transform Organizations from the Inside Out” contends that the planning phase often becomes the focus, rather than actual action. Involvement and engagement are the main event, he says, and planning is merely supportive. We congratulate Mr. Kahan on his book!
Check out Seth Kahan’s post at FastCompany here.
The Winning Poker Hand of Corporate Metrics June 18, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Lean Thinking, strategy.Tags: Lean Thinking, strategy
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Mike Wroblewski notes how companies focus too much on Cost, and not on Delivery. He explains that Cost can be measured in a myriad of ways, but that Delivery is only ever measured by whether or not something is on time. The same can be said of Morale. But Mr. Wroblewski suggests spending the most time on Delivery, Quality, Safety plus Morale, and then Cost – rather than focusing on Cost. It would be a royal hand rather than four of a kind.
Check out Mr. Wroblewski’s post here.
How to Write a Mission Statement That Doesn’t Suck April 20, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in strategy.Tags: strategy
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People tend to get too fancy or ambiguous writing mission statements. Dan Heath explains that when writing a mission statement, the statement should be concrete. They should also talk about “the why”: Too many mission statements are “all statement and no mission.” Companies need to say why they’re doing what it is they’re doing to attract customers.
Check out the article, and more tips, here.
Steven Spear: The Objective Function in Managing Any System Must Be Solving Problems and Learning April 20, 2010
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Lean Thinking, strategy, workforce.Tags: Lean Thinking, strategy, workforce
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Steven Spear says that there are principles of any system that must be followed in order to generate improvement. Learning, improvement, and innovation are key to complex systems, such as interdependent work done by groups of people to achieve value for others. Those four principles are, in brief: seeing problems, solving problems, sharing knowledge about the problems, and the use of leadership to drive more problem-spotting, solving, and sharing.
Read Mr. Spear’s article here.
The Lean Ratio December 30, 2009
Posted by Jeff Fuchs in Lean Thinking, strategy.Tags: Lean Thinking, strategy
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Measuring things seems inescapable, especially in a world that places so much emphasis on numbers and counting. Measuring lean productiveness, specifically, is best expressed as a percentage according to Bill Waddell over at Evolving Excellence. That is the measure of value added expenses to total expenses. Mr. Waddell explains:
If the business spent $20,000, for instance, and $12,000 of it was on value adding things while the rest was on management, supervision, material handling, inspection and generally pushing paper around, the Lean Ratio would be 60%; or it could be expressed as 3:2 if you like looking at numbers that way better.
However, Mr. Waddell also explains that comparing the leanness of companies to one another is useless; what really matters is that each company, individually, is continually improving. The idea is to continually improve the useful ways in which money is spent.
Check out Mr. Waddell’s post here.
