Featured Article
Progressive Management: 100 Years of CriticismBy Bob Emiliani
Progressive management, commonly known as Lean management* post-1987, has been the subject of severe criticism for over 100 years by everyone imaginable - workers, managers, suppliers, unions, academics, the press, politicians, shareholders - and from every industry imaginable - automotive, aerospace, healthcare, banking, law, energy, pharmaceuticals, information technology, apparel, printing, and so on. Criticism today is based largely on an outdated 1910 perspective of progressive management, in which the boss (rather than worker) is the expert. Much of the criticism comes from workers, but, like all others, their criticism is both squarely on-target and wildly off the mark. How can that be?
Workers’ criticism is squarely on-target because they frequently experience bad outcomes, directly or indirectly, as a result of progressive management. They, or others who they know or have heard of, have been harmed in ways great or small. Yet the criticism is also wildly off target because in most cases managements’ understanding and practice of progressive management is largely or wholly defective. It seems to be of little importance to any critic that there are enormous differences between defective, zero-sum (win-lose) progressive management and high-quality, non-zero-sum (win-win) progressive management.
Featured Book
Target Cost ManagementBy Jim Rains
With a proven track record for helping companies achieve critical cost reductions without sacrificing customer satisfaction, target costing provides managers and executives with the tools to survive and prosper in today’s increasingly competitive market—without raising prices on customers. Target Cost Management: details the preliminary steps required for a company to institutionalize target costing and the two necessary ingredients of target costing—proper organizational structure and cost tables. It describes and illustrates the interrelationships of the major techniques, tools, and methodologies needed to achieve the ultimate success.
New At SupErfactory
- As a fun side project we just launched Lean Pics, a photo blog showcasing photos of lean manufacturing examples and concepts.
- We consolidated our factory tour and lean manufacturing video library into a new website: Superfactory TV. Take a look!
- The Lean Leadership Series is our latest group of PowerPoint training presentations! Topics range from Leader Standard Work to Servant Leadership.
Featured Video
Our partner Gemba Academy has over 80 lean manufacturing training video modules. This month's featured video is Introduction to Lean.
Inside SupErfactory
- Training Presentations - Over 100 downloadable PowerPoint presentations.
- Lean Glossary - Hundreds of lean manufacturing terms defined.
- Lean Timeline - Learn how lean manufacturing concepts evolved over the ages.
- Articles, books, videos, events
Featured Event
AME Annual Conference
Baltimore, Maryland USA
15-19 November 2010
The Association for Manufacturing Excellence hosts the largest lean conference in the world, with workshops, seminars, and factory tours. For practitioners by practioners.
Newsletter
Superfactory publishes a free monthly e-news letter to over 50,000 manufacturing professionals worldwide. Each issue includes industry news, articles, and book reviews.
Join our Community
LinkedIn Group
Twitter
RSS Feed (Evolving Excellence)
Contact via Email
