Managing Customer Value
The original seven wastes (Muda (Japanese term)) were defined by Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System. These wastes have been often been redefined to better fit new organizations, industries, or external pressures. One redefinition of these wastes for service operations by Bicheno and Holweg (2009) is as follows: 1. Delay on the Read More …
The other day, I wrote about all the Maps in Service Design. Right or wrong, there has to be a reason we like all these maps. I think the idea of doing one is attractive to most but after starting the process many people get hesitant, the questions get hard. Whether we are mapping in Read More …
Do you always look as waste as something you should get rid of? In lean circles this would be an area that they would attack and as many call it get rid of the low-hanging fruit? That is supply side thinking. And it works when there is excess demand. We need to become more effective Read More …
Most large manufacturers last year failed to reach their cost-savings targets, despite significant investments in “lean manufacturing,” “Six Sigma” and other productivity programs as part of their overall retrenchment efforts in this tepid economy. Nearly 70% of manufacturing executives say that their manufacturing-improvement efforts led to a reduction in manufacturing costs of less than 5%, Read More …
When everyone thinks of Lean they think of Muda or the waste. I am a firm believer that you never directly attack Muda in sales and marketing simply because most people do not know what works and what doesn’t. Lean is not all about Muda. James Womack himself suggested that Lean practioners should think about Read More …
Many people believe that to apply Value Stream Marketing using Lean Techniques is about removing waste. Eliminating waste is one of the Guiding Principles of Value Stream Marketing but you must make some fundamental improvements in your marketing cycle before a pull marketing system will work. Value Stream Marketing (VSM) is about having a minimum Read More …