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Category Archives: Lean
Reality is visual
I had a post prepared for this morning, relating to the evolution of “local” agriculture, specifically around Sydney. However, the events of the weekend, the burning of Sydney’s surrounding bushland, including several of the farms of those I have been … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Governance, Lean, Operations
Tagged collaboration, communication, performance assessment
5 Comments
Thinking “Lean” is instinctive.
It is amazing how people adopt to “lean” instinctively, without any planning, or knowledge of the cliches and tools spruiked by consultants (including myself). People are pretty sensible when left to themselves, they do not build waste into a … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Lean, Operations, Sales
Tagged collaboration, communication, customer, demand chain, lean, Operations, performance assessment
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5 why’s of social media
“5 why’s” is a tool that started life in the Lean Thinking toolbox, but in reality is simply common sense. In effect, make sure you understand the real cause of the problem facing you before you start deploying solutions, otherwise … Continue reading
Posted in Customers, Lean, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Tagged Branding, communication, competitive strategy, lean, SME, Social Media, Strategy
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3 questions to apply “Lean” to social media.
Lean thinking is well established in manufacturing and office operations, but social media? Hardly? Lean thinking is all about the removal of anything that does not add value to the customer. So, if we extend this a bit to potential customers … Continue reading
Posted in Communication, Lean, Marketing, Social Media
Tagged communication, customer, Marketing, SME, Social Media
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Choose your customers
The sorts of customers you have play a significant role in defining who you are. A former client had a customer base that valued the hands on, custom design, and short supply chain they offered on their packaging component items. That … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Customers, Lean, Operations, Sales
Tagged Change, competitive strategy, customer, demand chain, Management, negotiation, performance assessment, Sales
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Lean accounting. An SME manufacturing lifeline?
Manufacturing SME’s in this country (Australia) are under severe pressure, particularly in heavily trade exposed industries like food manufacturing. Yesterday, Windsor Farms was put into administration, a month ago, Rosella went the same way and is currently being liquidated in … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Lean, Management, Small business
Tagged Change, change management, competitive strategy, Governance, great management, lean, Management, performance assessment, SME
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Failing is not the same as failure.
It is often said that for successful innovation to occur, you must be prepared to” fail often, fail cheap”. Early testing and prototyping speeds up innovation cycle times, the longer a project proceeds with issues unnoticed or unfixed, the harder … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Management, Marketing, Operations
Tagged category management, lean, Operations
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Productivity increase = Wealth creation
The maths are simple, do more with less, and you have more left over at the end. Productivity is not just something you aim for in the factory, the opportunities to do more with less are everywhere, in every activity … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Governance, Lean, Operations
Tagged Change, change management, Governance, lean, Operations, performance assessment
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Seeing the real cause
How often do we get sidetracked by several possible causes of an adverse or unexpected outcome? In the course of doing a fair bit of process improvement work over the years, one of the really successful strategies I have used … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Operations, Small business
Tagged change management, lean, Management, Operations, performance assessment, supply chain
1 Comment
An Apple supply chain pivot?
Tim Cook, the Apple CEO has just come out and announced that Apple will restart manufacturing in the US, starting with an unnamed Mac computer model, some time in the near future. The driver of “offshoring” to sources of cheap … Continue reading
Posted in Branding, Change, Lean, Operations
Tagged Branding, change management, lean, Operations, performance assessment, Strategy, web stuff
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Rule of 3
There are three types of activity in any business, from the small one man service operators to BHP. Doing all the things that generate revenue, today, tomorrow, and into the future, Doing the necessary things that support the generation of … Continue reading
Value adding ratio
Have you ever calculated yours? It is a pretty simple performance measure that carries a lot of weight, and contains the seeds of success, and destruction. In addition, if you know your industry well, it is pretty easily calculated for … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Management, Operations
Tagged lean, Management, Operations, performance assessment
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Time is not on your side
Of all the resources we have, time is truly the only one where there is no chance of technology making it replaceable or renewable. We all know that, so why do we continue to waste it so indiscriminately? Seems to … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Management, Operations
Tagged Management, managing yourself, Operations, performance assessment, Value chain
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“You get what you measure”.
It has always been so. The father of the modern manufacturing revolution, W. Edwards Deeming probably said it first in a management setting, that led to lean, the TPS, 6 sigma, and a host of management articles, cliches, and learned … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Management, Marketing, Social Media
Tagged analytics, communication, lean, Management, performance assessment, Social Media
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2 parameters, 5 measures of great process
Robust, repeatable, and easily taught processes are the foundation of good outcomes. It therefore makes sense to consider the factors that separate good processes from poor ones, the effective from the ineffective. The measure of the process has two parameters: … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Lean, Management, OE, Operations
Tagged analytics, Change, change management, lean, Operations, performance assessment
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Lean ROI calculation
Return on Investment is the basic calculation made to assess any investment, but too often gets complicated by all sorts of assumptions and forecasts. In these days of rapid prototyping, access to A/B testing tools using the web, and the … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Management, Operations
Tagged analytics, change management, Management, performance assessment
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FMCG business model disrupted.
Out with the old mass market advertising and business model, and in with the new. I shave, it costs a fortune, so much that I switched to disposable shavers without all the fatuous claims and high prices of the big … Continue reading
The cost of quality
What a great phrase to start a debate around the board table, often heated, as most still see the two as a trade-off, the better the quality, the higher the cost. How much better to beat the bean counters at … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Management, Operations
Tagged lean, Management, Operations, performance assessment
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Easy cost reduction
A while ago I helped a mate move flats. He had only been there about 5 years after becoming a “bachelor” again after his family grew up, but the significant amount of clutter accumulated was unanticipated, and surprising. All sorts … Continue reading
Posted in Change, Lean, Management
Tagged Change, lean, Management, managing yourself
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The APP report, a great idea squandered
Years ago as a senior manager in a large organisation, part of the monthly routine was to write an APP report: Achievements, Problems, Plans, kept to an A4 page, used as a scene setter for the more detailed monthly report. … Continue reading
Posted in Lean, Management
Tagged Leadership, lean, Management, managing yourself, performance assessment
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StrategyAudit 