Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website.  The new content is featured in the free monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.

New content in August includes:

The featured article is from Joel Makower and is titled Supply and Da Man.  The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

How many light bulbs does it take to change a supply chain? In the case of Baxter Healthcare Corp., just three.   

When Jenni Cawein, manager of corporate environmental health and safety engineering at the Illinois-based $9.8 billion health-care giant, arrived six years ago, she saw that the company was losing ground on waste. "I asked my boss, ‘Who’s working with purchasing?’ It turned out it was nobody," she says. Cawein set out to build a case for integrating environmental criteria into the company’s procurement process.

 

The Other Perspectives section has an article by Norman Bodek titled Who Can Shout Louder.   The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

The reason I am involved in this discussion, and I find it fun and challenging, is that I knew Mr. Taiichi Ohno and Dr. Shigeo Shingo. I was the publisher for both of them. I treasure and respect highly the participation of both these great masters and I don’t believe it is it fair to denigrate the memory of either one of them. They are not here to defend themselves. I gather my perspective from knowing both Mr. Ohno and Dr. Shingo and from many of the Toyota managers that worked with them for many years.

The featured book for this month is Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise by Tom Jackson.  A short synopsis is below, and you can learn more about the book or order it here.

At the heart of Lean and Six Sigma is the same, unique business operating system: hoshin kanri. It is a method of strategic planning and a tool for managing complex projects, a quality operating system geared to ensuring that organizations faithfully translate the voice of the customer into new products, and a business operating system that ensures reliable profit growth. The true power of hoshin kanri, however, is two-fold — it is a superior organizational learning method as well as a competitive resource development system. This book explains how you can implement, identify and manage the critical relationships among your markets, design characteristics, production systems, and personnel to satisfy your customers and beat your competition.

We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:

• Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
• Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
• History of Excellence: A growing timeline of notable events that helped shape current-day enterprise excellence
• PowerPoint Presentations: Over 50 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, quality, enterprise, and safety concepts.
• Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
• Tools and Assessments: Downloadable assessment tools.
• Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.

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.

Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website.  The new content is featured in the free monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.

New content in July includes:

The featured article is from Bob Emiliani and is titled Lean Government: Crazy Dream or Absolute Necessity?  The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

Your property and payroll taxes keep going up, but your salary does not. Important government services are underfunded or cut, but your needs remain the same or may even expand. It does not seem to you that government services, overall, are getting any better. But don’t worry, the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics predicts that between 2002 and 2012, the combined increase in federal, state, and municipal government employment will grow by over 2.5 million jobs – with most of the increase coming from state and municipal governments. Do you have confidence that hiring more people will help improve government services? Probably not.  

The Other Perspectives section has an article by Isao Kato titled Shingo’s P-Course and Contributions to Lean.   The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.

Mr. Shigeo Shingo taught a basic industrial engineering course at Toyota Motor Corporation starting in November of 1955. It was called the P-course internally and the P stood for production. Years later he taught this same course and a couple other topics in Toyota’s supplier ranks as well. During the 1960’s and up until about 1980 I organized his courses and the training materials, as well as coordinated the majority of his visits inside the parent company. Despite several myths and rumors to the contrary Mr. Shingo mainly taught the P-course at Toyota and he was not a regular advisor to Mr. Taiichi Ohno or any other senior executives of the company at that time. In fact he rarely met with any of them. However his association with Toyota Motor Corporation as both an instructor and occasional consultant did continue for close to 30 years and it was quite beneficial to both sides although not for the reasons frequently assumed by external parties.

The featured book for this month is Training Within industry: The Foundation of Lean by Donald Dinero.  A short synopsis is below, and you can learn more about the book or order it here.

This Shingo Prize winning book explores a crucial piece of a Lean initiative that has been overlooked throughout U.S. industry. The Training Within Industry (TWI) program — developed by the United States during World War II — has been used by Toyota for decades. This powerful program standardizes training processes and assists front-line supervisors in teaching new operations to workers quickly and effectively. Dinero completely explores the history and application of the four modules that compose TWI: Job Instruction, Job Methods, Job Relations, and Program Development. Readers will see that standardized work imparts measurable continuous improvement because it sets a baseline. It establishes a framework for efficiency and innovation.

We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:

• Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
• Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
• History of Excellence: A growing timeline of notable events that helped shape current-day enterprise excellence
• PowerPoint Presentations: Over 50 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, quality, enterprise, and safety concepts.
• Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
• Tools and Assessments: Downloadable assessment tools.
• Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.

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.