Hours Before Marlon Byrd T-Shirt Night, Mets Trade Marlon Byrd TAGS: baseball | consulting | continuous improvement | defects | free | inventory | lean | lean blitz | local | manufacturer | marlon byrd | mets | new york | night | pirates | pittsburgh | printer | sourcing | sports | supplier | t-shirt | trade Today the New York Mets traded outfielder Marlon Byrd to the Pittsburgh Pirates via post-trade deadline waiver claim. Normally these kinds of trades are newsworthy because the Pirates are fighting …Continue reading →

A Case for Kanban and Materials Management TAGS: associate | business | car | consulting | consumable | defects | dollar foolish | excess | fuel | gasoline | glut | inventory | kanban | leak | lean | lean blitz | maintenance | material | motion | operations | penny wise | process | product | pull | ruin | sam's club | save money | six sigma | sports | stockout | storage | supplier | tool | transportation | vehicle | visual | wal-mart | walking | wastes A prominent sports organization in the area (that shall remain nameless) normally uses an outside materials supplier to stock about 200 individual consumable items (paper products, food and drink items, …Continue reading →

Sewing Needles in Sandwiches! TAGS: air canada | airline | airplane | amsterdam | associated press | atlanta | attendant | blitz | british columbia | canada | catering | components | construction | consulting | delta | five whys | flight | fool-proof | implement | lean | minneapolis | needle | operations | packaging | plane | process | process flow diagram | root cause analysis | sandwiches | sealed | seattle | sewing | sports | supplier | tamper-proof | toronto | victoria In an article by the Associated Press, from the “That’s Not What I Ordered” Department”: Air Canada says a passenger found what appears to be a sewing needle in a catered sandwich on board …Continue reading →

Overproduction Example: Too Many Boxes! TAGS: beer | blitz | boxes | cleaning | concessions | customers | cycle time | forklift | hot dogs | inventory | lean | material handler | nachos | operations | operator | overprocessing | processes | productivity | safety | six sigma | sports | standardized work | supplier | thomson plastics | training As a refresher, the definition of the lean waste overproduction is the manufacture/assembly/production of more than what is needed at the time. An example of where overproduction can be a) …Continue reading →