Paul

The American Innovator – Global Lean Leadership Summit 2015 – Wildwood Cabinetry

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Paul Akers, of The American Innovator show, shares another presentation from Global Lean Leadership Summit 2015 that took place in August in NW Washington State. This week's presentation is by Ken Allender of Wildwood Cabinetry. For more information on Wildwood Cabinetry, visit their website.

A big thanks to George Trachilis, of Lean Leadership Institute, for filming/editing/publishing these videos!!! For more information on the Lean Leadership Institute, visit their website.

For more information on The American Innovator, visit our website or Facebook.

For more information on lean, go to 2 Second Lean or Facebook.

For more information on FastCap, visit our website or Facebook.

To sign up to receive news regarding The American Innovator show, go to this link.

Thanks Paul!

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before-afterThanks Paul! It all started with me reading Lean Health as a fat slob while sipping a venti caramel macchiato! I realized I was going to die of a heart attack if I didn’t make a change… so I made a change that day and haven’t consumed poisonous processed sugar or any other bad food since. I’m all in.

To Be An Engineer

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Pat Gilbert, of tustinwoodworks.com, sent us this story.

You don’t have to be an engineer to appreciate this true story.

A toothpaste factory had a problem. They sometimes shipped empty boxes without the tube inside. This challenged their perceived quality with the buyers and distributors. Understanding how important the relationship with them was, the CEO of the company assembled his top people. They decided to hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem. The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP(Request For Proposal), and third-parties selected. Six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution – on time, on budget, and high quality. Everyone in the project was pleased.

They solved the problem by using a high-tech precision scale that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighed less than it should. The line would stop, someone would walk over, remove the defective box, and then press another button to re-start the line. As a result of the new package monitoring process, no empty boxes were being shipped out of the factory.

With no more customer complaints, the CEO felt the $8 million was well spent. He then reviewed the line statistics report and discovered the number of empty boxes picked up by the scale in the first week was consistent with projections, however, the next three weeks were zero! The estimated rate should have been at least a dozen boxes a day. He had the engineers check the equipment, they verified the report as accurate.

Puzzled, the CEO travelled down to the factory, viewed the part of the line where the precision scale was installed, and observed just ahead of the new $8 million dollar solution sat a $20 desk fan blowing the empty boxes off the belt and into a bin. He asked the line supervisor what that was about.

“Oh, that,” the supervisor replied, “Bert, the kid from maintenance, put it there because he was tired of walking over, removing the box and re-starting the line every time the bell rang.”

Pen or Pencil in Space?

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After hearing the Toothpaste Box Lean Story, Wilson Lam shared this story, which is even better at making the point (and more lean!). I also shared this at our Morning Meeting.

“Country A Space Center employed famous consultant and used millions of dollars to modify the ball pen so that the ink inside the pen could overcome the low gravity and the astronaut could write in the space ship and space capsule. Country B spent zero dollar in the same project as their astronaut used a pencil to write in the space.”

The American Innovator – Global Lean Leadership Summit 2015 – Emergency Reporting

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Paul Akers, of The American Innovator show, shares another presentation from Global Lean Leadership Summit 2015 that took place in August in NW Washington State. This week's presentation is by Dave Adams of Emergency Reporting. For more information on Emergency Reporting, visit their website.

A big thanks to George Trachilis, of Lean Leadership Institute, for filming/editing/publishing these videos!!! For more information on the Lean Leadership Institute, visit their website.

For more information on The American Innovator, visit our website or Facebook.

For more information on lean, go to 2 Second Lean or Facebook.

For more information on FastCap, visit our website or Facebook.

To sign up to receive news regarding The American Innovator show, go to this link.