http://eliminatethemuda.com/2009/10/lean-management-we-gave-it-to-japan-is-it-time-to-take-it-back/ Where we prove that it is easier to save a dollar than to make a dollar! Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:16:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://eliminatethemuda.com/2009/10/lean-management-we-gave-it-to-japan-is-it-time-to-take-it-back/#comment-108370 Dan Goodrow Wed, 18 May 2011 14:56:32 +0000 http://eliminatethemuda.com/?p=576#comment-108370 I agree with everything in the article, because it is true. However, before we can take it back so to speak, we have to be disciplined enough to use it. There is nothing to take back. It was here all the time, but there was not enough of a top down commitment to consistently implement small systematic changes that could be effective. We are a reactive society and not a proactive society. Perhaps if we did not have the war to bring the economy out of the depression, or the rest of the world knocked to its knees for more than a generation, we would have listened to Demming when he presented his theories to the "big 3" auto makers.Instead we let him present his concepts to Japn who embraced them because of their desparate situation only to have us crying the blues because they used his concepts successfully when we chose not to. Now you can find a lean manufacturing, six sigma, kaizen, kanban, poka yoke course almost anywhere, but until these concepts are implemented nationwide (not neccessarily implementing ISO 9000 or TQM)or at least a consistent part of our manufacting and production base, we will always be complaining about stolen jobs and an unfair balance of trade which is actually an efficiency issue and a cost effectiveness issue that we as a country were willing to listen to but not buy into. I agree with everything in the article, because it is true. However, before we can take it back so to speak, we have to be disciplined enough to use it. There is nothing to take back. It was here all the time, but there was not enough of a top down commitment to consistently implement small systematic changes that could be effective. We are a reactive society and not a proactive society. Perhaps if we did not have the war to bring the economy out of the depression, or the rest of the world knocked to its knees for more than a generation, we would have listened to Demming when he presented his theories to the “big 3″ auto makers.Instead we let him present his concepts to Japn who embraced them because of their desparate situation only to have us crying the blues because they used his concepts successfully when we chose not to.
Now you can find a lean manufacturing, six sigma, kaizen, kanban, poka yoke course almost anywhere, but until these concepts are implemented nationwide (not neccessarily implementing ISO 9000 or TQM)or at least a consistent part of our manufacting and production base, we will always be complaining about stolen jobs and an unfair balance of trade which is actually an efficiency issue and a cost effectiveness issue that we as a country were willing to listen to but not buy into.

]]> http://eliminatethemuda.com/2009/10/lean-management-we-gave-it-to-japan-is-it-time-to-take-it-back/#comment-91 If The U.S. Government Read Personal Finance Blogs « Eliminate The Muda! Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:59:58 +0000 http://eliminatethemuda.com/?p=576#comment-91 [...] What’s really amazing is that our government doesn’t already apply all this sound advice. It is especially surprising to learn that much of these techniques were ideas that our government took to Japan over 50 years ago. They sent their best and brightest to Japan to help that nation rebuild after WWII. We taught them about quality control and continuous improvement. Lean Management, We Took It To Japan, Is It Time To Take It Back? [...] [...] What’s really amazing is that our government doesn’t already apply all this sound advice. It is especially surprising to learn that much of these techniques were ideas that our government took to Japan over 50 years ago. They sent their best and brightest to Japan to help that nation rebuild after WWII. We taught them about quality control and continuous improvement. Lean Management, We Took It To Japan, Is It Time To Take It Back? [...]

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