NO TIME TO WASTE · ISSUE 37 The Kanban Card on the Manager’s Desk A few years ago, I was working with a team implementing Kanban. I asked a simple question: When you get a signal, what’s the process that follows? The answer: the Kanban card is placed on the desk of the Purchasing Manager […]
NO TIME TO WASTE · ISSUE 36 A Leader Gets the Standard They Tolerate I visited a company recently — working with the managing director and owner of the business — and noticed three things within the first hour. None of them were on the agenda. All of them told me more about the culture
NO TIME TO WASTE · ISSUE 35 What Do You Do With All the Time You Save? Lean reviews save time. In Issue 31 we showed how a single process review can return 132 hours a year — with a payback in 13 months. But here’s the question most businesses never properly answer: what happens
NO TIME TO WASTE · ISSUE 34 Your Inbox Is a Process Map You Haven’t Read Yet Every business has a process map hiding in plain sight. It’s in your inbox. In the questions your customers keep asking. In the chase-up emails, the repeated objections, the ‘where’s my…?’ messages that arrive every week. In manufacturing,
NO TIME TO WASTE · ISSUE 33 Why the best companies treasure their defects I was delighted to get the opportunity to visit Applied Concepts in Birr this week. This is a small engineering company owned by Mark Clendennen, who were struggling a few years ago. Mark signed Kevin Brady, hoping to bring his no-nonsense
NO TIME TO WASTE · ISSUE 32 “They Won’t Follow Instructions” — The Question Behind the Question I was asked a question by a client this week that I couldn’t quite answer on the spot: “What do you do when a team member won’t follow an instruction?” When I asked for the detail, the story
