The other day I began a speech to a leading supplier of medical devices by congratulating them on the absolutely level demand for their products from existing users and on the steady growth in the...
Read more
Manufacturing
Competing with China
There are two sea changes going on in the world economy. The first is the rise of the “low cost” producers in China and the second is the lean revolution which is now gaining momentum. Although...
Read more
Supply Chain Walks
One of the most interesting things I do is to take a walk through a complete supply chain. I did this twice last week. The first was from a vegetable grower through a consolidation warehouse to a...
Read more
Frontiers of Lean
It is eighteen years since the first western firm, Danaher in the USA, began its lean journey guided by disciples of Taiichi Ohno, the architect of lean at Toyota. Ten yeas ago Jim and I brought this...
Read more
Lean from the Top
Flying to and from Australia gave me time to reflect on what appears to be a significant increase in interest in Lean thinking. Maybe, just maybe, we might be on the brink of a new era for the spread...
Read more