Question of the moment

Godefroy Beauvallet: Is there a “Lean Way” to look at one firm’s IT? Can IT be made to change towards lean? What would be the first steps in such a journey?
Lean is about creating a performance mindset, being aware of problems, and having problems solved locally as a way to develop people through problem-solving and fostering a "kaizen spirit". If one frames Lean that way, it seems hardly possible to practice it in any modern firm without getting across information technology questions: most of the work load nowadays is achieved using information systems (from emails to forms-filling); we use IT to report data, calculate indicators and analyze performance; alerts are often generated by sensors, sent through networks and treated by computers; amounts of data that can be used to analyze problems ...

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Posted on September 3, 2010
Author Archive
Kevin Meyer

Kevin Meyer: Any upsides/downsides to relying on JM/TWI process deconstruction as kaizen? Yes it works… but I can already see the limitation with non-documented processes

By Kevin Meyer, President of Specialty Silicone Fabricators and Factory Strategie Group, co-author of 'Evolving Excellence: Thoughts on Lean Enterprise Leadership' - Last updated: Sunday, July 18, 2010
A few of the thinkers and authors on this page have actually been in my operations, and I've used Michael's The Lean Manager as required reading in our lean book club.  We're a multi-site process (extrusion/molding) medical contract manufacturer, four or five years down a successful lean journey that has made us more agile and competitive, with great 5S, value stream organization, daily accountability, etc.   But one big struggle has been basic kaizen - creating the culture and finding the time.  Over the past couple years with help from Art Smalley we've successfully dived into TWI.  Now it seems like ...

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