Has Lean Thinking fallen short on the Demand Side

Lean Solutions was written several years ago expanding the principles of Lean to consumption. The authors, Womack and Jones detailed a Lean roadmap and ask companies to start providing the goods and services consumers actually want, when and where they wanted them and without burden to the consumer.  The authors provided compelling examples ranging from Read More …

Thinking Back from the Customer –Lean Summit 2011

Professor Daniel T Jones presents “Pushing the Frontiers: the next challenges for Lean Thinking” at the Lean Summit 2011. This video is an excellent demonstration of applications of Service Dominant Logic Thinking (Vargo and Lusch (2006). Daniel Jones is a management thought leader and advisor on applying lean, process thinking to every type of business Read More …

Cellular Concepts to Marketing Segments

Cellular manufacturing is one of the most powerful Lean tools. It will allow for smaller lot production, quality improvements, and shorter lead times and simplifies the implementation of pull. Typical manufacturing systems had the same machines all grouped together and as a result batch type manufacturing was developed. As manufacturers developed cellular systems, they found Read More …

Insight into the Customer Experience through Theater

At Work•Play•Experience Adam St. John (aka Adam Lawrence) turns good services into memorable service experiences that start people talking. Adam says, “Your customers will feel better served, will appreciate the value of your work, and will be more loyal to your company. And they will have great service stories to share with the world.” In Read More …

Starting Point for Lean Sales & Marketing

My best approach has been to simply start with developing a culture of PDCA and teamwork through a mini – Hoshin Kanri type plan or the use of the The 4 Disciplines of Execution. I have included a step by step guide called, My First PDCA. This guide can  be used by one leader with Read More …

The End of Best in Market

Best in Market has really become a myth in today’s world. These companies that believe this are typically product focused and determine their position by the amount of features and benefits that they have over the competition. Many times market share is not a consideration. It is also believed that continuous improvement on processes, people Read More …