Dec 11 2011
Russian Lean Blog Post about Cultural Differences
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This is a translation of my own comments in this discussion:
General statements about “the Japanese people” are never right. There are 130M of them, all with different personalities, and >1M companies. There is more to Lean than customer orientation and continuous improvement, namely specific tools developed over 60+ years, which must be learned rather than reinvented. People involvement, while necessary, is not sufficient. Company culture transcends national culture. We worked for Unilever in the Netherlands, the UK, Italy and the US, and the plants in all these different countries had much more in common than with plants of other companies in the same countries. Each country is special in some way, but these special characteristics mean little on a production shop floor. The only people who bring them up are those who want to prevent change.
Via www.leanforum.ru
Dec 13 2011
Motorola Mobility’s Thomas Goodwin on Six Sigma
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
Motorola Mobility is being taken over by Google, and the article is from October, 2011. It includes links to videos. In the first one, Ashton Kutcher tries to figure out Six Sigma. Based on how youthful he looks, it must at least 15 years old. The others are introductions to “Six Sigma,” that discuss nothing but the obsolete, 80-year-old tools of SPC: histograms, control charts, etc. The impresssion you get from the article is of Six Sigma as warmed up SPC sprinkled with a smidgeon of Lean. This is not the perception I had of the program.
Via www.supplychaindigital.com
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By Michel Baudin • Press clippings • 0 • Tags: Lean manufacturing, Quality, Six Sigma