Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website. The new content is featured in the monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.
The featured article is Bill Waddell's recent blog post, Lean on the Hoof. The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.
Those of us who are in the business of teaching lean are engaged in the endless pursuit of the perfect example, the best analogy, the ideal teaching tool. John Stossel and Dr. Jude Capper, an assistant professor of dairy sciences at Washington State University may have finally provided it. In a piece on what he terms "another food myth" Stossel and the good professor debunk the idea that grass fed 'naturally raised' cows are better for the environment than grain fed ones bulked up in feed lots.
What does the feeding of cattle have to do with lean, you might ask? Cycle time. According to the doctor, a grain fed cow goes from birth to burgers in 15 months, while a corn fed one takes an 8 month slower path to McDonald's. That 50% longer cycle time causes the cow to incur "extra eight extra months of feed, of water, land use, obviously, and also an awful lot of waste. If we have a grass-fed animal, compared to a corn-fed animal, that's like adding almost one car to the road for every single animal. That's a huge increase in carbon footprints."
The featured book this month is The Shibumi Strategy by Matthew May. The following is a brief summary, click here for more information.
The Shibumi Strategy is a little book about a big breakthrough. It tells the story of a hardworking family man who finds himself in crisis when his company closes. Through his struggle, and guidance from unlikely sources, he learns subtle lessons in the form of “personal zen” principles, coming to understand that it is often the involuntary challenge, the setbacks, that harbor the power to transform. When approached as an opportunity — no easy task when simple survival is the first order of business—unforeseen trials can sometimes result in an altogether new lease on life.
In other news we have recently launched a new product, The Lean Enterprise Strategy Kit, designed to help individual organizations and smaller companies create, execute, and continuously improve a robust lean-oriented strategic plan.
- Combines the best aspects of lean-centric strategy deployment and hoshin planning methods with traditional strategic planning to create strategies.
- Core principles are developed first to create a solid foundation for long-term strategy.
- A proprietary 40-topic lean assessment is used to look at world class behaviors and systems, not just the implementation of tools like most lean assessments.
- Each section includes a detailed PowerPoint presentation, worksheets, tools, documents, and recommended deployment methods in MS-Office format for easy customization.
Our partner Gemba Academy released the first modules of a new course titled The Kaizen Way. Gemba Academy now offers over 127 HD-quality video modules on lean manufacturing topics.
We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:
- PowerPoint Presentations: Over 115 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, lean leadership, lean industries, quality, lean enterprise, and safety concepts.
- Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
- Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
- Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
- Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.
For all you LinkedIn junkies, we have created a LinkedIn group for Superfactory, which now has over 5,000 members. Join the group to
network with other Superfactory enthusiasts and to show our logo on your profile. If you haven't explored LinkedIn, check it out to see why over 17 million professionals use it for networking.
We are always looking for new articles and other content. Contact us via the Superfactory website if you would like to contribute to our knowledge base.
Jayadeep Purushothaman says
But that cow example sounds very unnatural and unlean – it is more like outsourcing things to reduce cycle time without any care for quality. The meat industry does the same thing that other industries are after. Quality of meat of a grass fed animal cannot be compared to the grain fed synthetic ones.