Jan 20 2013

Does US manufacturing need more universities?

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Needed: ‘manufacturing universities’ to keep U.S. competitive
SmartPlanet.com (blog)
The erosion in manufacturing capability weakened the U.S. economy over the past two decades, Atkinson and Ezell add.

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

Universities have essentially contributed nothing to the art of manufacturing in the past, and I have a hard time understanding how they could be essential to US manufacturing competitiveness in the future.

See on www.smartplanet.com

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Jan 11 2013

Mike Rother: You already have a Kaizen Promotion Office… It’s called “Management” » The Lean Edge

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Mike Rother: You already have a KPO… It’s called “Management” » The Lean Edge http://t.co/qlQvRAZB

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

I agree. What Rother depicts is what most Kaizen Promotion Ofices degenerate into, but it shouldn’t be taken to mean that there should be absolutly no one in the company working full time on Lean. Even Toyota, for example, has the OMCD (Operations Management Consulting Division). The OMCD, however, has on the order of 60 members for more than 300,000 employees, which works out to one for every 5,000. This ratio guarantees that they won’t be the ones carrying out improvement projects for everybody else.

See on theleanedge.org

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Jan 6 2013

Manufacturing in Thailand adapts to higher wages – The Nation

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Companies get lean and mean. Many labour-intensive sectors have tried to adjust their operations to deal with the nationwide imposition of a Bt300 minimum daily wage. These…

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

Wages rise in Thailand, as in China and Vietnam. It means these economies are in transition away from competing based on cheap labor. It means more elaborate products, higher quality and productivity, along with the rise of a middle class hungry for imports. In the garment industry, higher wages also trigger a move from cotract manufacturing of cheap goods into high fashion.

See on www.nationmultimedia.com

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Jan 6 2013

Lean inventory translates into market agility | Knoxville News Sentinel

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Lean inventory translates into market agility
Knoxville News Sentinel
This was one of the key lean principles that Fairchild program manager John Houser learned in the University of Tennessee’s Executive MBA for Strategic Leadership program.

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

An article on Lean at Fairchild Semiconductor, although, all that is reported is a switch from monthly to weekly inventory reporting…

See on www.knoxnews.com

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Dec 28 2012

With the world watching, change begins at China’s factories – SiliconValley.com

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CHENGDU, China — One day last summer, Pu Xiaolan was halfway through a shift inspecting iPad cases when she received a beige wooden chair with white stripes and a high, sturdy back.

At first, Pu wondered if someone had made a mistake. But when her bosses walked by, they nodded curtly. So Pu gently sat down and leaned back. Her body relaxed. The rumors were true. When Pu was hired at this Foxconn plant a year earlier, she received a short, green plastic stool that left her unsupported back so sore that she could barely sleep at night. Eventually, she was promoted to a wooden chair, but the backrest was much too small to lean against. The managers of this 164,000-employee factory, she surmised, believed that comfort encouraged sloth. But in March, unbeknownst to Pu, a critical meeting had occurred between Foxconn’s top executives and a high-ranking Apple (AAPL) official.

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

A revealing story, where “lean” is only used in the sense of a backrest to lean against. Under pressure, FoxConn has come around to replacing stools with chairs. In another 10 years, they may realize that sitting while working 10 hours a day is itself a problem, and redesign operations so that operators stand and move. They may also realize that you get higher productivity and better quality with 8-hour shifts.

See on www.siliconvalley.com

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