Tom Reed: Lean Enthusiast & President Of American Lean

Shows

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesWhat to Include in Your Lean Training - Part 4Since it is near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks.Up to this point, we have covered 12 other Lean topics- Lean History, VA vs. NVA, the 8 wastes, 6S, Current state and future state VSM’s, waste walks, PICK chart, RIE’s, A3’s, setting up an LPO and developing a Master Plan and RIE report-outs.If you cover...2020-12-3006 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Engage Employees during your Lean TransformationEmployee engagement is going to make or break you on your Lean transformation. For those that are interested in a successful Lean Transformation, I have a secret for you. Lean is about changing the culture of your organization. Ask yourself, how do I turn my employees into daily problem solvers? One success indicator of employee engagement is having them drive the transformation effort within your company, but how do you get there? Here are five ways to engage employees during your Lean transformation.First, let’s talk about what the end state looks like. Ideally, you have de...2020-12-2905 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFocus on the Customer in 2021What is the purpose of your business? Is it to make money as many people believe? I took finance during my MBA program and finance says your goal is to generate shareholder value. That doesn’t sound like a great rallying cry for employees. “We have to focus on increasing our shareholder value in 2021.” Yeah, no. How about you find better ways to focus on the customer in 2021?Can you use that to engage and energize employees? I bet so, and if you make improvements in that area, I bet your revenue will increase.1. Review your Tr...2020-12-2804 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesMerry ChristmasMerry Christmas to all of our listeners, clients, companies, family and Friends!2020-12-2500 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesTop Roles for a Successful Digital TransformationOrganizations have dramatically sped up their digital transformation activities. The pandemic has made companies consider a digital transformation much sooner than before. Companies of all sizes realize they need to transform. To help guide you, here are the top roles for a successful digital transformation.1. Solution ArchitectJust like it sounds, a solution architect develops the overall strategy for the digital transformation. Think of the solution architect as the techie that can explain software solutions to the leaders in the organization.They explain how software and digital solutions solve business problems.2. Da...2020-12-2405 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesTopics to Include in Your Lean Training- Part 3Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover topics to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks.If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a tra...2020-12-2304 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesInside Secrets of working with a Prime companyOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This week is a little different, I share the mic with James, a buyer at a Multi-National Fortune 100 company. He shares inside secrets on supplying a Fortune 100 company.James is unique in that he worked with both a supplier to Fortune 100 companies and is now a buyer from the same supplier base. He ha...2020-12-1812 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesWhat to Include in Your Lean Training- Part 2Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list- I’m breaking the topics up over several weeks.If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshops for many of these topics to keep people excited and engaged when we can all get into a tra...2020-12-1604 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesRely on your Core Team to Support Company CultureFor companies that are developing their Lean transformation, a key element for supporting the transformation is sharing information within the company, and engaging employees. Establishing a Core Team of representatives from different functional areas helps with that information sharing. You should also rely on your core team to support company culture.There are several steps to establishing this infrastructure properly. Believe me, selecting the right employees to be representatives on the core team will help your business transformation immensely.If you choose well, your transformation will excel and you can utilize these resources to have a p...2020-12-1504 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesTopics to Include in Your Lean Training- Part 1Since it’s near the end of the year and your company might consider Lean training for next year, I thought I’d give you an early present and cover what to include in your Lean training. This is not an exhaustive list and I’m going to break this up over several weeks. I'll cover more topics through the end of the year. So stay tuned!If you cover these topics, I know you will have a very solid start in educating employees on Lean topics that will benefit your company immensely! It’s helpful to add workshop...2020-12-0904 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFour Steps to a Successful Lean TransformationOver the thirty years that I have been honored to work with companies, I have seen fantastic, mind-blowing results from Lean efforts. I have also seen companies lose interest after a short time. They treat their Lean innovation like a Book of the Month Club or get frustrated from a lack of results. Some organizations become paralyzed and never begin their Lean Innovation. To me, that is the worst situation of all.I would like to share some gotchas I have seen.Companies make their Lean Innovation more complicated than it needs to be. They gather too...2020-12-0205 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesElements of a Lean CultureI’m sure preparing for 2021 is on the minds of many organizations this time of year. Given the strange year it has been, I’m sure we all want to move on from 2020. I have seen companies “decide” they want to implement Lean in the next year when they do their annual planning. What I rarely hear is we need to develop a culture that supports Lean efforts. To get you thinking along those lines, here are some elements of a lean culture.It starts at the topAny successful business or cultural transformation starts at the top. ...2020-12-0104 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesTip for Being Grateful During Your Lean JourneyUndertaking a business transformation is difficult. After all, who are the only people who like change? Wet babies. Depending upon where you start, it can take a lot of heavy lifting from many people in the organization. It’s easy to get caught up conducting “activities” on a weekly or monthly basis, which is why it’s important to slow down, reflect, and be grateful during your Lean journey.Henry Ford recognized the value of bringing people together to accomplish work and make improvements so a business could last multiple generations. He realized the opportunity to work together, rea...2020-11-2504 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesTips to Develop a Culture of GratitudeStaying with the theme of gratitude for this Thanksgiving week, I want to share some tips to develop a culture of gratitude. If you weren’t aware, there are science-based benefits of being grateful. Productivity increases, job satisfaction increases, as does your mental and physical well-being. Here are some actions to consider.1. It starts at the topAny successful business or cultural transformation starts at the top. The same is true when trying to develop a culture of gratitude. When leaders in the company recognize minor acts that would otherwise go unnoticed, others in the organiza...2020-11-2404 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFour Stages of Change your Employees will Face on a Lean TransformationWhen people go through change they move through four stages of change. I cover the four stages in this episode.DenialResistanceExplorationCommitmentEveryone goes through these changes at their own pace. In this podcast I offer ways to help this transition.Rate and Review HereMore show notes are hereSchedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed.Buy the Lean Game PlanFollow me on Twitter@dailyleancoachJoin me on Linked In 2020-11-1804 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHansen Plastics Sees Huge Success from their 12 year Lean Journey!One of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. These are keynotes from a conversation with Tim Bayer, President of Hansen Plastics in Elgin Illinois.Hansen Plastics is an employee-owned (ESOP) and they maintain a can-do attitude because their employees are also owners. Respect and trust for each other are key elements of their True North. They have over 70 molding presses pr...2020-11-1315 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFive Mindsets Holding You back from Your Lean JourneyIn this podcast I cover the five mindsets that hold companies back from getting started on a Lean Innovation.We're uniqueWe're not ToyotaWe're high mix/low volumeWe don't have timeWe can't afford outside coachesHear how you can overcome these mindsets and the benefits you will receive!Rate and Review HereMore show notes are hereSchedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed.Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoachJoin me on Linked In 2020-11-1105 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFour Steps for a Successful Lean TransformationThere are four simple steps I have road-tested over the years that will make your Lean transformation easier and successful! Follow these for success.Vision- Develop your unique Lean Game PlanEmployee training camps- Train employees on Lean topicsExecute the Lean Game Plan- Conduct Rapid Improvement Events (RIE's)Half time adjustments- measure and adjustRate and Review HereMore show notes are hereSchedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed.Buy the Lean Game Plan Follow me on Twitter@dailyleancoachJoin me on Linked In 2020-11-0405 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesAmerica Rocks! Please Vote!I have spent a career working with American companies. All kinds of companies. Large ones, small ones, family-owned companies. There isn't much I haven't seen manufactured. I've worked with government agencies to help them as well.In some small way I have helped each company improve and become more competitive. I know Lean helps companies increase competitiveness and retain American jobs. Needless to say, I've loved every minute of it. I love America and I hope you do too! Show how much you love America and make the time to VOTE!All the...2020-11-0300 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLean Accounting Helps you Keep Better ScoreLean accounting may not sound very exciting, but this podcast episode with Jerry Solomon brings all kinds of energy and excitement!Jerry shares how he moved from an accounting role into VP of Operations roles and shares the struggles of getting business performance information that employees can use to make improvements.These are some key points taken from my interview with Lean accounting expert Jerry Solomon. I was asked to move from the COO position to running operations. What a difference. I went from being a provider of information to a consumer and saw som...2020-10-3016 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFour Leadership Skills for the WFH FutureThe reports of companies stating they will allow employees to work from home forever are growing every day. Twitter, Square (same CEO), Shopify, Slack, Facebook, are a few of the tech companies stating employees can work from home indefinitely. Many fintech companies like Mastercard, Capital One, and others are allowing employees to work from home. Leading this way will require a different set of leadership skills. Here are four leadership skills for the WFH future.1. How to virtually engage employeesWhen employees can’t get into a room and see reactions to conversations, when they can’t s...2020-10-2604 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesReplay- MD Engineering Uses Lean to Improve Cash Flow to GrowOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. These are keynotes from a conversation with MD Engineering.MD Engineering founded in 1999 and located in Corona, California is a nationally recognized leading producer and distributor of quality machined products providing parts to the military, industrial and commercial manufacturers worldwide. They are a leading supplier of complex machined parts, assemblies, and “buy comple...2020-10-2313 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesKeep Your Lean Journey Moving ForwardOne of Henry Ford’s sayings is that “Coming together is the beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is a success.” Grand words from a great Lean influencer. The tendency might be to put off your Lean activities given the current environment. I believe it’s more important than ever to keep your Lean journey moving forward!I still coach companies and lead Rapid Improvement Events in today’s environment. We all wear masks and stay six feet from each other as much as possible. We can still use our most important attribute- our brains to solve proble...2020-10-2104 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFour Guidelines for Supporting Your Lean IntrapreneursThe employees that are working as lean coordinators, six sigma black belts, etc are really intrapreneurs. Learn how you can support them for success!Provide a defined time frame for participationHave clearly defined goals for the businessChoose wisely and provide trainingMeasure and adjust as necessaryLearn how you can support these intrapreneurs!Rate and Review HereMore show notes are hereSchedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed.Buy the Lean Game PlanFollow me on Twitter...2020-10-2005 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesThe Importance of a Management System to Support Servant LeadersServant leadership is often associated with successful Lean innovations. While many organizations think implementing Lean is deploying a known set of tools, it is truly about changing your organization’s culture. One way to change your culture is to develop and support servant leaders.Robert Greenleaf is known as coining the phrase “servant leadership” in 1970. Like Toyota, he developed some frameworks that can apply to different organizations but not be directly copied.Key discoveries that Robert Greenleaf identified are that “servant leadership is a lifelong journey that includes self-discovery, a desire to serve others and a commitmen...2020-10-1905 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Improve Every Day with KataWe call it continuous improvement because we continually want to improve in small increments. Unlike a sport, there is no time limit and you don’t keep score. Continuous improvement is not a race and you are never done. Sometimes you’ll want to focus on specific items to improve every day with Kata.What are some examples? Quality is one. I’ve worked with companies that had nagging quality issues they wanted to eliminate. I coached them to begin using the Kata method to attack these issues and several months later they made 90%+ improvements.What is a Ka...2020-10-1406 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesGeater Machining Shares How They Used Lean to Help them Grow from 10M to 45MGoing all in and support from leadership allowed Geater to 4X their growthRate and Review HereMore show notes are hereSchedule a free 1/2 call with Tom Reed.Buy the Lean Game Plan 2020-10-0906 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesDigitize your Lean Efforts to Increase Employee EngagementGiven the impact to supply chain performance that many manufacturers have felt do to the pandemic, it's become important to speed up the use of technology. Implementing more technology as part of Industry 4.0 will allow you to take on larger improvement activities. Here are some tips you can implement to digitize your lean efforts.Tip 1 - Digitize your Lean FrameworkMuch operational excellence and Lean improvements involve pen and paper. Clipboards, stopwatches, times studies. Calendars of events printed and placed in a PMO- Project Management Office for all to see.One limitation of thi...2020-10-0104 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFive Simple Steps to Improve Company CultureLast week I talked about five reasons your company culture matters. This week I want to offer five steps to improve your company culture. These steps came from an infographic I saw from the Digital Information Age. You might not offer the cultural benefits like Google, Ikea, and Amazon, but there are small steps you can take to improve your culture.Step 1- Encourage conversationGiven the state of things in the US, this may seem counter-intuitive. Google uses micro-kitchens where employees can gather and discuss topics. What can you set up in your organization whe...2020-09-2905 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesOncore - Quit Making your Lean Transformation so HardCompanies make their Lean transformation too complicated. They spend too much time collecting data, they put the success in the hands of a few people and they measure the wrong KPI's for success.Here are four steps you can take to have success in your Lean transformation:Establish your companies vision and True North - Understand where the waste is in your business - Develop your Lean Game Plan.Train the employees on Lean concepts.Follow the Lean Game Plan - Have events as scheduled.Half time adjustments- measure and adjust....2020-09-2506 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesThe Keyword in Cobots is CollaborativeAs the pandemic has wreaked havoc within industries across the globe, the pressure is on for manufacturers to implement automated solutions to keep their works safe. This is great, but “lights out” factories with no human workers have not gone so well. The keyword in cobots is collaborative.Watch a cool video here:https://youtu.be/bqJhJY5J_E8 A study by NAM (National Association of Manufacturers) taken in early March shared that 53% of manufacturers expect a change in operations. Wearing masks and protective equipment will be part of that change.Another...2020-09-2405 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesUse a PICK Chart to Find the Best IdeasLast week we talked about the eight wastes and using a waste walk to identify them in your organization. As a review, your rapid improvement team members go on a waste walk, capture the wastes they observe, and placed them on a DOWNTIME chart. Then they brainstormed solutions to eliminate the waste. The next step is to use a PICK chart to narrow down brainstormed ideas.What is a PICK chart? It’s an impact/effort matrix. You use it to identify the best solutions from a large quantify of ideas. Along one axis of the chart is the e...2020-09-2304 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesToyota GM Shares what Makes Toyota GreatOne of the great honors I get to do weekly is interview companies on their lean journeys. This week I was fortunate enough to spend time with Jason Hartkemeyer, a General Manager at Toyota Boshoku which makes seats and interior pieces for the automotive industry.Some of the key points from our discussion: Toyota Boshoku is the original Toyota. The founder Sakichi Toyoda began by making automated weaving looms. In the early 1900's his sons visited Europe and convinced their father to begin producing automobiles. Jason mentioned he traveled to Japan and saw the original loom that...2020-09-1815 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesPrepare your Business for Augmented RealityAugmented reality can transform the customer experience by allowing potential customers to try it before they buy it. You can take see how that new couch will look in your living room before purchasing it.A/R will also change the way maintenance is done in many situations. Imagine walking to a piece of equipment with AR glasses on and the oil filter location shows up on the glasses along with a picture of the tools needed to complete the job.So how do you prepare your business for Augmented Reality? Here are several things to...2020-09-1704 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLearn what the Kettering Health Network does to Stay Lean 1. Tell us about yourself and your company Chris Luckett, Industrial, and Systems Engineering Degree. I have worked in various industries throughout my 20+ years. I am the Network Manager of Process Excellence for Kettering Health Network in Dayton Oh. Kettering Health Network is a faith-based award-winning healthcare system of 10 hospitals, 10 emergency departments, and 120 outpatient facilities serving southwest Ohio. With nearly 13,000 employees and 2,100 physicians and ~2B Revenue per year. Emergency Care, Cancer Care, Orthopedic Surgery and Rehab, Neuro & Stroke Care, and Heart Care. Our calling card is to provide improvement science and best practice throughout the NW.2020-09-1114 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to hold a Successful Kaizen Event Report OutOne of the key elements of a kaizen is holding a report out at the end of the event. Having led over 450 kaizen events, I believe I have found a successful report out format. Learn about my kaizen report out format in this blog.Every company does their report outs differently. During the report outs where I coach companies, we have the team present their outcome using a PowerPoint presentation. These vary in length depending upon the activity, but each team member gets one to several slides to present.You should require a report out aft...2020-09-0905 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesReplay- The Importance of a Management System to Support Servant LeadersServant leadership is often associated with successful Lean innovations. While many organizations think implementing Lean is deploying a known set of tools, it is truly about changing your organization’s culture. One way to change your culture is to develop and support servant leaders.Robert Greenleaf is known as coining the phrase “servant leadership” in 1970. Like Toyota, he developed some frameworks that can apply to different organizations but not be directly copied.Key discoveries that Robert Greenleaf identified are that “servant leadership is a lifelong journey that includes self-discovery, a desire to serve others and a commitmen...2020-09-0705 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Hold a Successful Kaizen EventLast week I shared the importance of developing and A3 or project charter for your kaizen events. This week I want to share my kaizen event sequence of events. I have led over 450 kaizen events in my career and I have a good sequence of events. Here is how to hold a successful kaizen event!Day 1- Review A3, event calendar, VSM, waste walk, and brainstormBecause I didn't include and ice breaker or introductions, I am assuming everyone in the event knows each other. If not, then do introductions. Since you'll be spending several days...2020-09-0207 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesReplay of the First Episode and Why You should listen!It's August 28th. It's the day I was born. So I thought I would do a throwback episode and a take a day off from new content.Think back to 1986, if you can. What were you doing? Were you in College like I was at the University of Cincinnati? Were you riding a Huffy bicycle as a young woman or man? From 1986 to 1989 I was lucky enough to be an Industrial Engineering student and I had a co-op job at Huffy bicycles.Huffy had brought in a consulting firm whose initials at the time we AA. ...2020-08-2807 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLean Efforts Pay off - Gaining Boeing as a CustomerOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies using Lean principles to improve. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This podcast can be found here. It is episode 136 on the American Lean Weekday podcastKV Engineering is a family-owned machine shop located in Santa Ana, California and primarily supports the Aerospace and Defense industry. Established in 1984 starting with one manual mill in a garage, they have grown into a 22,000 square foot...2020-08-2106 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Match Your Kaizen's to KPIsAs you develop your Lean Game Plan, you’ll identify KPI’s–Key Performance Indicators that you want to affect with your Lean improvements. Often you need to go several layers deep before you get to the actual kaizen event. This blog will explain how to match your kaizen's to KPIs successfully.Let’s use the picture above as an example. The overall goal for this company is to increase cash flow. We can increase cash flow in several ways, but one of the easiest ways is to reduce the amount of inventory kept on hand. Our main KPI is t...2020-08-1904 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesBigge Crane Uses Simple Solutions to Reduce Lead TimeThis week I interview Larry Reece former Lean manager at Bigge Crane located in Oakland California. They rent and sell all types of crane equipment for the construction industry.Key Takeaways: Bigge Crane began their Lean journey in the maintenance area. This area focuses upon repairing rental cranes returned from the field.They wanted to focus on lead time. "Equipment doesn't make money if it is sitting in the yard."Bigge Crane started with Value Stream Mapping and Lean training. "Many people knew their process, but not how everything fit together. Value stream mapping was key for us...2020-08-1409 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesSingles will Drive your Lean Gains- W Machine Uses Small Wins to Drive Employee EngagementIt's baseball season. At least for now in the COVID19 era. While we all think we need to hit home runs on the Lean journey- you don't. Hear how W Machine Works used small wins to drive their employee engagement!This week on American Lean Weekday, I interview W Machine works who have been on a continuous improvement journey since 2005.One of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I hav...2020-08-0706 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesUsing Certification MatricesIt has been interesting for me to see that we have a coin shortage right now. Years ago (2000), I was part of an internal Lean team working with the US Mint locations. We headquartered from the Denver Mint. Our goal was to implement Lean concepts at all Mint locations- Denver, San Francisco, West Point, and Philadelphia.The new state quarters were being introduced and demand was going through the roof. The mint was producing about 600 quarters a minute from each stamping press. That was a lot of quarters.The Lean transformation was new to the Mint...2020-08-0505 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesContract Manufacturer Sees Huge Savings from first KaizenOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This week I speak with a contract manufacturer in Longmont, Colorado.NeoTech in Longmont, Colorado is a contract manufacturer that primarily supports the Aerospace and Defense industry. NeoTech is the combination of Natel, EPIC Technologies added in 2013, and OnCore Manufacturing which was purchased in 2015.Locations include California, Nevada, Ohio, Colorado, Illi...2020-07-3108 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesCybersecurity for SMB ManufacturersCybercriminals are becoming more interested in small and medium-sized businesses. Why? They are viewed as vulnerable but still valuable targets. They are being attacked by evermore sophisticated attacks resulting in trillions of dollars spent in defending themselves. Let's talk about cybersecurity for SMB manufacturers.Governments and small businesses believe that they’re protected by anti-virus software. That may be true for many viruses, but cybercriminals are using artificial intelligence to make cyberattacks more effective.Given the COVID pandemic with more people working from home, there are more opportunities to gain access to your systems. It isn’t ju...2020-07-3005 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesStay Away from the KPI BuffetWhat is the KPI buffet? It is measuring so many KPI’s that you can’t tell the direction of the company. I consulted with a company measuring 30 different KPI’s when they began their Lean journey. When we worked on their Lean Management System, one of the pillars became to measure what matters.They took that to heart and narrowed what they measured to a handful of KPI’s. Here are some tips to help you stay away from the KPI buffet.1. Safety must be a KPII believe that safety has to be a KPI. ...2020-07-2905 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesIt's a 6G Thing5G speeds are being adopted more quickly every year. As I have mentioned before in this Industry 4.0 blog, 5G speeds will provide the backbone for automated factories and that is becoming more of a reality every day. Believe it or not, the discussion around 6G speeds is already beginning.It is estimated by 2025 that 48% of the US or 205 million users will adopt 5G devices. Much of the adoption of 5G speeds will depend upon when Apple releases an iPhone with a 5G chipset in them. Could it be this fall? Hard to know, but I would think it wi...2020-07-2305 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow Managers can Support IntrapreneursMaybe your organization has to pivot into new areas since the COVID19 pandemic. One way to increase the speed of pivoting is to unleash your internal intrapreneurs. As they drive change, offer fresh opportunities and improvements, they will run into barriers. Here is what managers can do to support intrapreneurs.1. Co-create a vision that inspires employeesUse your knowledge of the employees to co-create a vision that will inspire them. You work closely with employees conducting the daily work. Your input is important in framing the message from Senior Leadership. Help them craft the employee communi...2020-07-2104 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesUnited Airlines Maintenance Crew Embraces LeanOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. You can find the podcast here. It is episode one hundred and seven of the American Lean Weekday podcast.United Airlines has been on their Lean journey since at least 2004. This is an interview with a retired United mechanic who shares his experience with all of us. Larry Reece was in the or...2020-07-1708 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesRV Supplier Stays Lean to Keep up with DemandOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations.Lippert Component Inc. (LCI) in Goshen, Indiana world’s leading supplier of highly engineered products for the leisure and mobile transportation industries. LCI employs roughly 9000 employees throughout 70 locations worldwide. They have annual sales greater than $2.5 Billion dollars. These are some key points taken from my interview with the Director of Lean Manu...2020-07-1014 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to make Change Stick in Your OrganizationDriving improvement and change in an organization is hard. It requires a lot of heavy lifting. Employees rarely embrace change because the mind doesn’t like uncertainty. When you talk about change, that leads to an uncertain future in many people’s minds. Here are four tips to make change stick in your organization.1. Your company is being too casual about itThere is a saying in Lean, what is your burning platform? Early adopters ran into the very thing this blog is about. Employees don’t embrace change on their own.If you develop a...2020-07-0705 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesWhat American Lean Means to MeAs we approach the Fourth of July- America's Independence Day, I want to reflect on why I chose the name American Lean for my business and American Lean weekday for my podcast. It is very personal for me.When I was an Industrial Engineering student at Huffy bicycle in Celina, Ohio we hired Arthur Anderson (now Accenture) to come and provide some consulting for us. At the end of their time there, they presented their report-out and suggested that we embrace this new manufacturing methodology being used in Japan called Lean manufacturing.This was the la...2020-07-0304 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFive Tips for Effective Mangement WalksThree weeks ago, I introduced the concept of a layered approach to support your sustain efforts. This week I want to go into more depth on Effective Management Walks.First, let’s do a re-cap. The three layers of support are coaching cards, leader standard work, and management or Gemba walks. Each layer supports the layer above it.Operator Coaching CardsThese are elements of standard work that we want team members to complete each day within their work area. This is a great way to sustain your 6S. You can put the element...2020-07-0104 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Apply the Correct Leadership Style in any SituationOne of the most powerful frameworks I’ve been exposed to during my leadership career is called situational leadership. I was fortunate to be a young man when I was exposed to this framework and put it into practice. The best part is that it is simple and effective. It will help you apply the correct leadership style in any situation.The basic premise is that it is best to apply the correct leadership style with employees given their ability around a certain task. If you can do this, it eliminates their frustration. Situational leaders...2020-06-2905 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow Binoculars Helped Tulkoff Foods Become LeanerOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast are the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This podcast can be found here. It is episode ninety-two of the American Lean Weekday podcastTulkoff Foods is headquartered in Baltimore Maryland. They employ roughly 50 employees in their world class co-packing food operation. These are some key points taken from my interview with the President of Tulkoff Foods, Phil Tulkof...2020-06-2612 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFive Tips for Developing your Cloud StrategyNow that COVID19 has driven everyone to the safety of their homes, many organizations realize that they don’t have an effective cloud strategy. Let me re-phrase that, they don’t have ANY cloud strategy.You need one. My crystal ball broke, so I can’t tell you what the future looks like, but I think it is safe to say, there will be more employees working from home.What is a cloud strategy? Is it a simple manifesto that states we will store everything in the cloud? You probably have a strategic plan. A cloud strat...2020-06-2504 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesBenefit from Leader Standard WorkTwo weeks ago, I introduced the concept of a layered approach to support your sustain efforts. This week I want to go into more depth on Leader Standard Work.First, let’s do a re-cap. The three layers of support are coaching cards, leader standard work, and management or Gemba walks. Each layer supports the layer above it.Operator Coaching CardsThese are elements of standard work that we want the team members to complete each day within their work area. This is a great way to sustain your 6S. You can put the ele...2020-06-2403 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFour Tips to Become a Great LeaderMany people enter the management ranks of an organization. They manage to the best of their ability and do a great job. There aren’t many who become true leaders. Leading requires a different operating framework. Here are some tips to become a great leader. 1. Cast a VisionWhen a leader casts a vision, they suggest that things will be different. They acknowledge that to grow as an organization, things need to change. They are presenting what they believe the future will look like. Who wants to work at a company where there is no future visi...2020-06-2204 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesThe $10M benefits of Industry 5.0One of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This podcast can be found here. In this episode, I interview Michael Rada from the Czech Republic about what Industry 5.0 might look like. It is episode eighty-seven of the American Lean Weekday podcast.Given the increasing speed of adoption of Industry 4.0 is it too early to start thinking about what Industry 5.0 looks like...2020-06-1907 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFour Tips to Build a Proactive CultureMany company cultures are reactive. People love firefighting. Something happens and then everyone reacts to what happened. Decisions are made with little data collection. I’m sure your company isn’t like that but in case you are, here are four tips to build a proactive culture.1. Establish the company Lean Management SystemWhen you operate without a Lean Management System it is like trying to run a computer without an operating system. Employees aren’t aligned with what matters to the organization.Using a Lean Management System helps guide everyone’s decision making. It ref...2020-06-1604 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesImplementing Flow Lines Saves $200K and Increases Throughput by 30%One of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast are the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This podcast can be found here. It is episode eighty-two of the American Lean Weekday podcastGeater Machining and Manufacturing is headquartered in Independence, Iowa. They employ roughly 500 employees in their world class machine shop. These are some key points taken from my interview with the Manager of Finishing Operations, Ashley...2020-06-1209 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesIntroducing the Three Levels of SustainOne of the many questions I receive from companies on their Lean transformation is “These Rapid Improvement Events are great but how do we sustain the gains we make?” The answer is to cascade your sustain efforts using three levels of sustain!You might believe sustain is only done at the operator or team member level. You know, it’s the fifth S in 6S. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are levels of sustain that are the responsibility of supervisors or leads and upper management. These are besides what team members complete.Over the ne...2020-06-1005 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLevel Five Leadership in LeanLevel Five Leadership: The PinnacleWhether we are talking about a businessman, a football coach, or a teacher; there is one thing they all have in common…they are leaders. But what level of leadership are they? How do they treat their employees? What do they think about results and deadlines?Every leader operates at his/her level. According to John C. Maxwell, there are five levels. In his book, “The 5 Levels of Leadership,” he describes five leadership levels that lead to a phase of leadership maturity. For the past few weeks, we have looked at the ot...2020-06-0805 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesElkay Manufacturing Improves their Supply Chain with LeanOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This podcast can be found here. It is episode seventy-seven of the American Lean Weekday podcast. Ron shares how Elkay improves its supply chain with Lean.Elkay Manufacturing is headquartered in Downers Grove, Illinois, and is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year! They employ roughly 3,500 employees across 29 locations worldwide.These are s...2020-06-0510 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesSetting up Your Lean Promotion OfficeYour organization has developed current state and future state value stream maps. You have identified waste opportunities that exist and have laid out your quarterly Lean Game Plan. Now it is time to set up your Lean Promotion Office. This is the “war room” or headquarters for all your lean communication, planning, and Rapid Improvement Events.I realize there are thousands of ways to set up a Lean Promotion Office but I would like to provide you with some examples I have seen work well.1. Set it up in a Plan, Do, Check, Act formatEa...2020-06-0304 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesTwo Reasons Why Change is HardWhy change is hard. I could give a short answer and say that it is because you have to work with people. Why are people so hard to deal with in making a change? It comes down to two things hard for people to deal with.1. UncertaintyThe human mind doesn’t like uncertainty. It likes order and bases decisions on previous experiences. Which of these options gives you the most anxiety?I am going to re-design your job. I am definitely going to re-design your job. I might or might not re-design your job...2020-06-0205 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLevel Four Leadership in LeanLevel 4 Leadership: People DevelopmentJohn Maxwell in “The Five Levels of Leadership” writes that with Level 3 leaders, the emphasis is on personal and corporate productivity and this ability to create a highly productive team, department, or organization shows a higher level of leadership ability than most others display. To reach the upper levels of leadership that create elite organizations, leaders must then transition from producers to developers. Why? Because people are an organization’s most appreciable asset.Good leaders at Level 4 invest their time, energy, money, and thinking into growing others as leaders. How does this e...2020-06-0105 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFive steps to Take Now to Prepare for the FutureI heard Alex Rodriguez on a podcast with Gary Vaynerchuck yesterday and he made a great point about the current times. He said that Joe Torre would tell him during a rain delay that the players that went to the back and ate burgers during the rain delay wouldn’t perform as well after the delay as the players who kept their head in the game, rode the bike to stay warm, etc. Joe said it was important to prepare for the future.What type of player do you want to be? Now before I continue, I am no...2020-05-2905 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesDeveloping Your Lean Game PlanLast week I talked about developing a future state Value Stream Map. After you have developed what you want the organization to look like in the future, now comes the hard work of moving toward that future state. That calls for developing your Lean Game Plan.I believe there is a simple way to ensure you will have a successful Lean Innovation- one that involves true culture change. This entails developing your own Lean Game Plan one quarter at a time. To keep it simple, focus on four steps in your Lean Game Plan.1. Define your...2020-05-2704 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesTips for Developing a Culture of Personal ResponsibilityHave you worked in an organization where no one seems to take any personal responsibility for meeting their deliverables, deadlines, or project results? As a top performer, how does that make you feel? Let’s talk about how we can develop a culture of personal responsibility and drive results!1. Understand the Aim of the organizationEveryone must understand the aim of the organization. What are the goals for this quarter? For the year? How will we handle business in a pandemic? I have mentioned before the importance of a Lean management system that shows the True Nort...2020-05-2604 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLevel Three Leadership in LeanLevel Three Leadership – Production: Making Things Happen Separates Real Leaders For the past few weeks, this blog has been reviewing “The Five Levels of Leadership” by John Maxwell and how those levels relate to lean leadership. This week’s blog will discuss Level 3: Production.The 5 Levels are like a staircase – all the higher levels rest on the lower ones. Every leader must pass through every level to get to the next one. For example, Level 2 builds on Level 1. You cannot be a Level 3 leader until you’ve mastered Level 2. But once you’ve built a relationship wit...2020-05-2506 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLearn what this Essential Business is Doing to Keep Employees SafeOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast are the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This podcast can be found here. It is episode sixty-seven of the American Lean Weekday podcastKV Engineering is a machine shop located in Santa Ana, California and primarily supports the Aerospace and Defense industry. Established in 1984 starting with one manual mill in a garage, they have grown into a 22,000 square foot facil...2020-05-2205 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesAdditive Manufacturing in Industry 4.0As I mentioned in the original Industry 4.0 blog, nine key enablers support Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing. As a reminder, the nine key enablers are listed below. Additive manufacturing will be a key enabler and is being deployed quite often right now.Some of the key enablers of Smart Manufacturing include:Cyber Security/BlockchainCloud ComputingIIoT- Industrial Internet of ThingsBig DataSystem IntegrationAutonomous Robots-CobotsAdditive Manufacturing- 3D printingAugmented realitySimulation/Digital TwinsI'm sure that we all aware that additive manufacturing or 3D printing is being used to print parts for face shields for the brave workers that are cu...2020-05-2106 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLevel Two Leadership in LeanLevel Two Leadership – Permission – You Can’t Lead People Until You Like People John Maxwell, in his book “The 5 Levels of Leadership” writes that this leadership level is about the human relationships that the leader has built up around him. Making the shift from Level 1 leadership -Position to Level 2 leadership- Permission is a person’s first real step into leadership.Leadership is influence, and when a leader learns to function on the Permission level, everything changes. This is where people do more than merely comply with orders. They start to follow. And they do so because they...2020-05-1806 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLean in a Printed Circuit Board Company that sees Huge SavingsOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations.NeoTech in Longmont, Colorado is a contract manufacturer that primarily supports the Aerospace and Defense industry. NeoTech is the combination of Natel, EPIC Technologies added in 2013 and OnCore Manufacturing which was purchased in 2015.Locations include California, Nevada, Ohio, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mexico, and China. The Longmont location has about 150 employees acro...2020-05-1508 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesWhat Would You Have Your Digital Twins DoAs I mentioned in the original Industry 4.0 blog, nine key enablers support Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing. I list the nine key enablers below. The adoption of 5G internet speeds will enable Digital Twins to add value for your customers.Some of the key enablers of Smart Manufacturing include:Cyber Security/BlockchainCloud ComputingIIoT- Industrial Internet of ThingsBig DataSystem IntegrationAutonomous Robots-CobotsAdditive Manufacturing- 3D printingAugmented realitySimulation/Digital TwinsWe’ve all heard the comment that we can’t be in two places at once. What if you could be in two places at once? What would you have you...2020-05-1405 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Develop a Current State Value Stream MapIf you have read my book the Lean Game Plan, you know I talk about Value Stream Mapping as the first step to understand where you should focus your improvement efforts. If you have never completed a Value Stream Map for your organization, it will be helpful to develop l an Enterprise Value Stream Map (EVSM).An EVSM shows how the entire organization adds value to the customer. An EVSM shows what happens from the time the phone rings until you deliver a product or service to your customer. After you have developed an EVSM you might dev...2020-05-1305 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Deal with Frustrating People in an RIEOccasionally, within a Rapid Improvement Event, or daily interactions, we will deal with frustrating people. Given the speed of an RIE it's hard to slow down to deal with those frustrating people on the spot. Here are four tips to help you deal with frustrating people in an RIE.Keep perspective and have patienceOften when we get frustrated with people it’s because we are in a hurry ourselves. Maybe they had a deliverable to meet but didn’t deliver on time. We often make assumptions about people that aren’t true. They’re lazy, or they...2020-05-1205 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLevel One Leaders in LeanResearch states that "46% of all improvement initiatives fail because of lack of leadership."1 Having too many Level One Leaders will kill your Lean transformation. Here is how to identify them!Much has already been written on Lean Leadership. Jim Womack and John Shook at the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) describe the evolution of leadership models as going from ‘Do it my way’ (old Dictator style) to ‘Do it your way’ (1980s Empowerment style) to ‘Follow me … and let’s figure this out together’ (Lean style).This week’s blog focuses on the ‘Do it my way’ style, John Maxwe...2020-05-1105 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesInside Secrets on Working with Fortune 100 CompaniesOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. This week is a little different, I share the mic with James, a buyer at a Multi-National Fortune 100 company. He shares inside secrets on supplying a Fortune 100 company.James is unique in that he worked with both a supplier to Fortune 100 companies and is now a buyer from the same supplier base. He ha...2020-05-0812 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesAugmented Reality- Seeing is BelievingAs I mentioned in the original Industry 4.0 blog, nine key enablers support Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing. I list the nine key enablers below. This blog post will introduce augmented reality.Key enablers of Smart Manufacturing include:Cyber Security/BlockchainCloud ComputingIIoT- Industrial Internet of ThingsBig DataSystem IntegrationAutonomous Robots-CobotsAdditive Manufacturing- 3D printingAugmented realitySimulation/Digital TwinsAugmented reality (AR) is not a pretend world like many Virtual Reality worlds are, but it is an aid that provides computer-generated images to enhance our real reality. These enhancements can take the form of graphics, sounds, or tactile feedback....2020-05-0704 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Increase Your Confidence as a Lean CoordinatorWhat if you are the employee assigned to guide your companies Lean journey but you have little experience? Here is how you can increase your confidence.1. Have Confidence in your Lean AbilitiesIn our minds, we believe that we have to know everything there is to know about Lean before we can confidently deliver results. We overcomplicate things. Increase confidence with the decision to be confident in what you are doing. This is a choice that you make every day. Choose to have confidence!The reality is you have to be one page ahead...2020-05-0505 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFive Levels of Leadership Applied to LeanWhen talking about Lean, people often focus on the process management part. They focus on value stream mapping and try to improve processes while neglecting to update leadership and management systems. The lean leadership model is based on one crucial belief – the leader’s goal is to raise new leaders. To do that, leaders must become teachers and coaches. A good roadmap is a book- The 5 Levels of Leadership.In his book, “The 5 Levels of Leadership” John Maxwell details the concept of 5 levels of leadership. The levels represent stages in leadership development starting with being the boss who people...2020-05-0404 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesKeep Better Score with Lean AccountingLean accounting may not sound very exciting, but this podcast episode with Jerry Solomon brings all kinds of energy and excitement!Jerry shares how he moved from an accounting role into VP of Operations roles and shares the struggles of getting business performance information that employees can use to make improvements.These are some key points taken from my interview with Lean accounting expert Jerry Solomon. I was asked to move from the COO position to running operations. What a difference. I went from being a provider of information to a consumer and saw som...2020-05-0116 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesThe Cobots are Coming!As I mentioned in the original Industry 4.0 blog, nine key enablers support Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing. The nine key enablers are listed below. In this blog, I want to talk about how cobots will enable you to expand your operations.Cyber Security/BlockchainCloud ComputingIIoT- Industrial Internet of ThingsBig DataSystem IntegrationAutonomous Robots - CobotsAdditive Manufacturing- 3D printingAugmented realitySimulation/Digital TwinsAs we continue our discussion about the nine key enablers of Industry 4.0 I want to talk about cobots or Autonomous robots. What is a cobot and do you need to be concerned about your job? There have been...2020-04-3006 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Increase Cash Flow Without Laying Off Employees Part 3In the previous blog, we talked about setting up our pull chain for the parts that support the top 80% of the products you sell to customers. We discussed understanding the pull chain for each type of part that goes into your finished product. Next, we need to consider the customer demand for the products that make up your top 80% of sales.Assuming that we want to keep two day’s worth of material at the assembly location, four days of material in the supermarket, and our supplier takes 20 days to replenish an order, how much material do we n...2020-04-2907 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Hold Meetings that Add ValueDo your daily activities and meetings add value as they should be? Do your employees routinely miss your meetings? The analysis shows that out of each day, employees conduct Non-Value-Added activity up to an average of 280 minutes per day. That is 4.6 hours a day.NVA Meetings (reactive)- 80 minutesNVA Phone calls- 30 minutesNVA Email communication- 80 minutesRepeat system failures- 40 minutesRework- 20 minutesReport generation and excess tracking- 30 minutesThis adds up to about 70,000 minutes a year which is 145 days of non-value-added time. Much of tha...2020-04-2805 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesMastermind Groups Can Speed Up Your Lean ResultsFor many middle-market organizations, they want to speed up their Lean Transformation as quickly as possible, but they don’t have experienced Lean professionals on their staff. A great way to speed up a new Lean coordinator's learning is to encourage them to join Mastermind groups.I led Mastermind groups in the late nineties consisting of four companies within different industry segments and we conducted round-robin Rapid Improvement Events (RIE) at these four companies. Each month one company would host a Rapid Improvement Event at their location with Lean coordinators from each of the other three companies as par...2020-04-2704 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesMD Engineering's Lean Journey Helped them Free Cash to GrowOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations. These are keynotes from a conversation with MD Engineering.MD Engineering founded in 1999 and located in Corona, California is a nationally recognized leading producer and distributor of quality machined products providing parts to the military, industrial and commercial manufacturers worldwide. They are a leading supplier of complex machined parts, assemblies, and “buy comple...2020-04-2413 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Increase Cash Flow without Laying Off Employees Part 21. Conduct a Pareto analysisUnderstand the 20% of your items that make up 80% of the demand by conducting a Pareto analysis. Focusing on the top items will allow you to have immediate gains in inventory turns and improve cash flow quickly. This is great for today’s environment when you might not be sure what your demand will be. Chances are your customers will still order your top items.2. Review the BOM's for these itemsAfter you understand the top sellers, review the Bill of Materials and understand what parts are consumed by the top it...2020-04-2208 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Overcome Imposter Syndrome as a Lean Leader1. Establish a vision for your Lean transformationThis helps drive alignment and support. Develop a management system and share the vision with the entire organization. Employees will get behind the change effort then they can see there is a vision for change.2. Select a few KPI's to measure the businessThere is a saying in Lean that is very important- measure what matters. Don't go to the KPI smorgasbord when developing your KPI's. Keep them simple, and don't use so many that you confuse the organization. Develop KPI's that employees can impact through their p...2020-04-2004 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesCapco Inc. Seeing Benefits from Lean in 7 MonthsOnly 7 months into their Lean Journey- Capco Inc. a $65M company headquartered in Grand Junction, CO has seen benefits and inventory improvements by implementing Kanban.Capco Inc. has 100,000 square feet, 404 employees and has been around since 1968. They are a Department of Defense critical supplier.This interview is with the Paul Kobishop the Director of Production and Inventory control. He has over 30 years of lean experience and is a great example of how a company can speed up results by using an experienced coach."We have a product that has 2500 parts and we will...2020-04-1708 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesBig Data in Industry 4.0First, let’s understand what Big Data is and what it means to us in a connected world. Big data refers to very large data sets- petabytes (1024 terabytes) or exabytes (1024 petabytes) of data.To put this into something you can envision, if a laptop has a 1TB hard drive, a petabyte uses 1024 laptops worth of storage. An exabyte would use 1,048,576 laptops worth of data. That’s a lot of data.It can also refer to how companies handle large unstructured data and store information. Realize that this amount of data may be billions of unstructured records...2020-04-1606 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFour Ways to Improve Employee CommitmentWhen beginning your Lean journey many companies ask the question of how can we get employees engaged? Another question that goes through their mind is often WHY do I have to get people involved? The answer is simple. Employees who are included are committed. Here are four ways to increase employee commitment.Many years ago, when conducting some 6S activities within a department the leaders wanted to keep the area building product while others on the Rapid Improvement Event team (RIE) did the 6S of the area for them. What’s the problem with this? How much employee...2020-04-1404 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesHow to Coach Employees to Their PossibilitiesAs leaders, it is important to remember we are there to coach employees to their potential. This often gets overlooked because we get busy running the business, attending meeting after meeting (many of which are non-value added). Then, with the little energy we have left, we get around to doing our hardest work, coaching and directing employees.What requires even more energy is coaching an employee or group that isn’t performing to expectations, which is our fault as their leader. Typically, we look at this scenario as having two options: We can let them go, which...2020-04-1304 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesLippert Component Inc. Uses Report Out Process to Celebrate and Drive Employee EngagementOne of the key elements on my American Lean Weekday podcast is the weekly interviews that I conduct with companies on their Lean Journey. These companies are from various industries and are all different sizes. I have interviewed leaders from family-owned businesses to multi-national organizations.Lippert Component Inc. (LCI) in Goshen, Indiana world’s leading supplier of highly engineered products for the leisure and mobile transportation industries. LCI employs roughly 9000 employees throughout 70 locations worldwide. They have annual sales greater than $2.5 Billion dollars. These are some key points taken from my interview with the Director of Lean Manu...2020-04-1014 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesKeep Employees Safe and Minimize WIP Using In-Process Kanbans (IPK's)Given what is happening, we should deploy everything possible to protect employees. That is why I want to share the In-Process-Kanban or IPK. What’s a Kanban? Kanban is the Japanese word for signal.An In-Process-Kanban is a very high-tech device that signals you when to work or when not to work. I’m kidding, it’s not high-tech, it’s an X on the assembly line. It signals operators when to build, when to stop building, and when to flex to another operation.Typically, these are used in assembly lines and they help facilitate three things...2020-04-0806 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesFive Ways to Overcome Company ProcrastinationLearn the five reasons companies procrastinate and how you can overcome them1. OverconfidenceThe organization believes that it can implement Lean quickly with little effort. The reality is true culture change takes time. Yes, you might see savings as quickly as your first Rapid Improvement Event. I have written other blogs about that very thing.Then what happens? Are you suddenly world-class? Are all your employees engaged in becoming daily problem solvers? Have you removed all the waste from your processes?True Business Transformation takes time and requires a lot of leaders...2020-04-0705 min

American Lean Weekday: Leadership | Lean Culture & Intrapreneurship | Lean Methods | Industry 4.0 | Case StudiesGeater Machining Increased Throughput by 60% after one RIEHere are the key elements from my interview with VP of Operations Dan Heller of Geater Machining.1. “We were able to increase throughput through the bottleneck process of paint by 60% after one Rapid Improvement Event. 2. “Lean applies to many areas, especially a machine shop. Any time you want to increase throughput, and save money, Lean applies.” 3. “Seeing the employees’ enthusiasm, give their ideas, be heard and provide their input is very exciting.” 4. The biggest successes have been the Rapid Improvement Events. “We have seen a huge benefit by gettin...2020-04-0307 min