Lean Thoughts

top executives were aware of only 4% of an organization's frontline problems.

If you break their concentration it will take up to 22 minutes for them to back into the groove. It is a known fact that it takes 22 minutes for a worker to get into their zone. I kindly refer this to their "Hypnotic State" ... How can I tell? Their motions are fluid and if you stand and watch them, it actually appears like they are dancing. Yes, they have tuned out any surrounding noise and are laser focused on performing the task before them. We need to keep them in th

AI model capabilities are advancing rapidly, but adoption inside established organizations is moving much more slowly. In hindsight, I don’t think that is much of a surprise.

“Richard you are going to have to learn in life to sit on your hands”

xperiencing company misalignment as each departments moved forward with its own projection. Our salespeople set revenue goals, our controller had a year-over-year budget, and Operations had its excel sheets and run rates. All three pseudo-forecasts were vastly different. What resulted were overstocks, stock-outs, and unrealistic budgeting. We needed someone to take ownership of the forecast – but who?

A great supply chain strategy can help you dominate the market over time, but big mistakes can destroy your company in just days.

Which approach is best? It depends on what the specific problem is. In fact, both lean and six sigma are needed because they do different things.

If implemented carefully, digital solutions can certainly help increase the effectiveness of long-standing Lean Methodologies. But the key word is “carefully.”

The technological singularity did not arrive as a fact. It arrived as a story, one we have been telling ourselves about machines, progress, and what it means to be human.

I have something that you don't have, but would definitely appreciate and even perhaps enjoy. I have an almost unrestricted access to Nikola Danaylov my go to Subject Matter Expert (SME) regarding anything AI.

Better, Faster = Cheaper or more appropriate higher customer value and improved margin.

Bad planning is a major cause of ERP implementation failure, and it’s important to establish specific goals and objectives, assess current processes, and create a comprehensive workflow outline..

When a company tells me they have gone LEAN, it actually means they have most likely simply given up or stalled. I snicker at programs offering some sort of martial belt of accomplishment or an outright offering of LEAN Certification.

My father always loved to tell me just easy running a business is/was. He would state that if you wanted to make more money al you had to do was either A) increase your revenue or B) reduce your costs ... well that seems simple enough Dad,

Chasing Numbers not Widgets

Walk into almost any operations meeting today and you’ll hear it: “We should use AI for this.”“Can we plug in an LLM?”“Let’s add a copilot.” “This might be a stupid question… what is an LLM?”

Each Technology Island or Report-Out area has their own unique attributes, challenges and opportunities. The reality is that each Report-Out area is a Center of Gravity.

It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to fully refocus on a task after a typical interruption,

How do we instill lean into our culture and make it part of our company DNA, engaging the whole workforce

You know the "D" word I am talking about. The aspirational word uttered by about every leader I work with. That super-attractive, theoretical, ever-elusive, I-know-I-need-to-do-it-but-can-never-figure-out-how word. That word that will unlock the key to success or, at a minimum, sanity: