Archive for the ‘Lean’ Category

What can Henry Ford teach the solar industry?

Lean was made for a manufacturing environment, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to your work too!

Nobody likes junk mail, but how do you get your name off the lists?

Lean: it’s not just for business anymore. What if government could deliver more value and less waste?

GE and the Environmental Defense Fund are offering free Lean energy efficiency consulting to a few select partners. How they approach the work could spell thrilling victory, or agonizing defeat.

Everyone wants to be more creative, but do brainstorming techniques really work? It seems we’ve ignored the answer to that question since 1958…

Yes, there are two roads you can go by, but in the long run… they lead to the same place. It seems Lean and Biomimicry share some common roots.

TweetThe principles of Lean – respect for people, eliminating waste, and fact-based management – make perfect sense in the manufacturing sector.  But what does Lean have to do with the rest of us who can’t tell a hammer head from a hammerhead? A lot, actually. For instance, imagine you’re starting a company, or just hoping [...]

TweetImagine if every single person in your organization made one small improvement to his work process every day.  We’d get more done in less time, with lower costs and happier, more creative employees. Or so I imagine it. Take a look at one company where this is the standard.  Paul Akers, business man, Lean practitioner, [...]

TweetFor the last few years, I’ve been perplexed about why more people have not connected the dots between the Toyota Production System (Lean) and the sustainability movement.  As I’ve dug deeper, I found that the Leanies really ARE thinking about concepts of energy efficiency, waste reduction, and pollution prevention, as these are natural side effects [...]