Keeping Up With Technology – Buyer Beware

How many times have you purchased a product only to find that a better or new and improved version was just released? It happens to all of us, myself included. Advertisers or salespeople sell you what they think you can afford. I’m not offended by the question, “What’s your budget?” One of the reasons we may feel betrayed after making […]

Standardized Work Combination Table

Standardized work is often perceived as a rigid series of “never to be changed” process steps. This misperception is likely why one of the most powerful lean tools is also the least used. Standardized work represents the current best practice, and lean practitioners recognize there is always an opportunity to improve. There’s always a better way and more than one […]

There’s Always a Better Way And More Than One Solution

While this post may be brief, it serves to exemplify my often stated phrase: There’s always a better way and more than one solution. Versalytics.org I was perusing a Wikipedia article on the Fortran programming language and paid special attention to a short block of code to calculate the area of a triangle. The program was using a formula I […]

February 2nd is Groundhog Day! A great day for Lean Thinking.

Although there is no correlation between a groundhog seeing its shadow and the arrival of Spring-like weather, groundhog day is a tradition celebrated by many in Canada and the United States. If the groundhog casts a shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter; otherwise, Spring arrives early. Perception is a matter of perspective. What we perceive and believe […]

Micro Lean in 2020

Lean thinking affects all facets of an organization. Every person, activity, product, service, process, system, or method represent an opportunity for continuous improvement. If the devil is in the details, then lean thinking extends to understanding and improving the “little things” we do every day, not just as teams, but as individuals too. Lean thinking embraced at a personal level […]