The Superfactory Newsletter is published monthly to over 50,000 subscribers.

Inside Superfactory

About - Articles
Blog - Books
Events Calendar
Forums - Surveys

Lean Enterprise
Lean Manufacturing - Lean Office - Lean Accounting - Lean Design - Lean Project Management - Lean Sales & Marketing - Lean Supply Chains - Hoshin Planning - Lean Enterprise Assessment

Quality
SPC - Root Cause Analysis - Six Sigma - FMEA - ISO 9001 - Mistake Proofing

Business
Balanced Scorecard - Design for Lean - Cost Accounting - Capital Budgeting - Competitive Intelligence - Knowledge Management - Job Design - Outsourcing Strategy - Supply Chain Strategy - Strategic Management - Project Management

Safety
Accident Investigation - Biosafety - Chemical Spills - Hazard Communication - and 35 more

Sponsors

Join the Superfactory LinkedIn group!

From the Editor

Welcome to the Superfactory Newsletter!

The AME Annual Conference is coming up in Toronto next week. The AME conference is the largest lean conference in the world, and over 1,350 people have already registered. Late this month Gemba Research is offering another "Japanese Kaikaku Experience" ... a week of touring lean factories in Japan. I'll be going on this trip and will report on the experience, but I would also encourage you to sign up as well.

We are adding to our downloadable PowerPoint training presentations with the new Lean Enterprise Series, which includes lean accounting, lean supply chains, lean office, lean sales, and more.

Finally, we have added a new blog, Lean Companies. This is an "automated" blog in that it searches for companies that make the news for their lean activities, and then automatically posts a brief summary each day. A great way to keep up on how companies are implementing lean!

- Kevin Meyer

Manufacturing Excellence News

Stories of interest to the lean community.

• Air Force Learns from John Deere
  Greeneville Sun, TN - 15 hours ago
• Lean Baseball Gloves
  Worcester Telegram, MA - 13 hours ago
• Lean Satellite Design
  MarketWatch - Oct 10, 2008
• Beware the slippery slope along the lean manufacturing path
  Reliable Plant Magazine, OK - Oct 7, 2008
• Children’s Hospital is going lean
  San Antonio Business Journal, TX - Oct 7, 2008
• How to Shrink Your Waste with Lean IT
  eWeek, NY - Oct 6, 2008
• The Logic of ‘Leading Through The Line'
  ReportonBusiness.com, Canada - Oct 6, 2008
• Laconia firm gets 'lean' boost
  The Union Leader, NH - Oct 5, 2008
• Lean Collision Center Grand Opening
  Jamestown Post Journal, NY - Oct 4, 2008
• ITT Goulds will stay on in Seneca Falls
  Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, NY - Oct 8, 2008
• Wisconsin Grant will pay to train 532 workers
  Wausau Daily Herald, WI - Oct 9, 2008

In the Blog

Join over 3,000 readers who get their daily dose of blunt manufacturing reality by subscribing to the Evolving Excellence blog!

  |  Subscribe to Evolving Excellence by Email

Recent posts in the Evolving Excellence blog include:

• Fun With Statistics: Carbon Footprint Edition - Why one footprint isn't the same as another.
• A 5am Wakeup Call - The call every manager dreads receiving, and what it teaches about the value of people.
• Compensating Risk - Is executive compensation out of line, or just tied to the wrong short-term metrics?
• The Lesson of a Stinky Basement - Amazing how much waste reduction can happen, just by thinking about waste reduction.
• The Other Bailout, Part 4 - The Detroit Three got their bailout, but what does it really mean?
• Accountability Wins... For Now - The initial failure of the $700 billion provided hope; alas it didn't last.
• An Off Day for the Always On - Are you addicted to your PDA phone?
• Confronting the Global Talent Crunch - The search for talent goes global.
• Email, Lean and Concise - Mastering the five sentence email.

Visit the Evolving Excellence blog...

Also visit the new Lean Companies blog...

Upcoming Events

Featured Book

Going Lean

by Stephen Ruffa

This book sets aside the notion that efficient operations and powerful innovations are only possible when business is steady and demand is growing. Instead, companies must learn that sudden shifts or unpredictable conditions need not undermine their results. Led by a new breed of companies -Toyota, Wal-Mart, and Southwest Airlines--a powerful, yet unexpected mindset is reshaping the rules for business competitiveness. In Going Lean, readers will learn how to: become broadly effective in creating and sustaining value * set a critical foundation for achieving sustained excellence * identify sources of lag and create robust value streams that thrive in today's dynamic conditions * describe the underlying techniques to maintain steady and predictable flow * create a system based on "pull," or external demand that consistently introduces new innovation even during severe downturns * strive for perfection * deliver industry-leading returns.

Featured Article

Proof of Process as Leading Indicators: Base For Lean Metrics

by Cash Powell, Jr.
Associate Director, Center for Competitive Change
University of Dayton Research Institute

In his book “Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools”, Ron Moore introduces the idea that many of the traditional measurements in use by companies measure business activity after the fact. He calls them “lagging indicators” such as unit cost of production, return on net assets or gross profit per product line. Moore does not suggest there is anything wrong with these measures. In fact they are designed to be simply an after the fact confirmation that the right things are happening in the company according to expectations. He does suggest that we also need leading indicators to assure we are doing the right things for results.

Peter Drucker also discusses information “Executives Truly Need” to direct company strategy: return on Investment, Economic Value Added and the objective of all business activity: results. To get to the expected outcome, these metrics bank on the right things being done day to day but they are not designed to measure the work being done day to day. Nor are the lagging indicators designed to insure that anything different is going to happen for the company in the next reporting period. When used alone, lagging indicators are only expectations as to the performance outcome between this month and next or this quarter and next.

When relying solely on the lagging indicators, management can never be sure of the operations and financial results until the books are closed for the next month and the “horse is still out of the barn”. Such measures used in a traditional systems setting were not available for sometimes weeks after month-end closing. Even today when the books can be “closed” the second day after month-end, the next lagging metrics will not be known for another thirty days.

Read the entire article...

Featured Blog Post

A 5am Wakeup Call
by Kevin Meyer

It's been a rough day or so, hence the short post. Yesterday I got the 5am call all of us dread: one of my manufacturing team members had lost her life in a car accident on the way into work. She worked in one of the most technology-intensive parts of our company, and as the day progressed we learned more about her hopes, dreams, struggles, and sacrifices that made the event all the more tragic. As President I feel a special responsibility for the people in the company, and I spent the day with my leadership team helping to comfort, console, and support friends, family, and coworkers.

Even at a family-owned and people-centric company like ours, this was a reminder that companies, and all organizations for that matter, are comprised of people. On this blog we talk a lot about how most companies think of employees as just a set of hands. An unfortunately much smaller group recognize that there's value in the brain connected to those hands. We need to go another step and remember that there's a full person behind the brain, a person that goes home to a family and friends and has dreams, struggles, responsibilities, and aspirations.

Let's not forget.

Read more and comment...

© Copyright 2008 Superfactory. All Rights Reserved