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Pete Abilla

Legislating The Toyota Production System: Making the Application of Lean the Law

by Pete Abilla on January 26, 2012

lady liberty, blind justice

Bypassing any expected change management effort or cultural transformation, nothing gets a group of employees moving than an executive order. That’s exactly what the Governor of the State of Washington did – has executed an executive order for government employees to apply Lean in their work. I’m as surprised as you are. When I first [...]

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Root Cause Analysis Through Deception

by Pete Abilla on January 25, 2012

placebo buttons, close door elevator

Have you ever pressed the closed button in an elevator? Or, have you played with an office thermostat because you were either too hot or too cold? Or, did you press the “walk” button on the crosswalk this morning? Did it work? If so, you’ve been deceived. Since we are psychological creatures, the solution to [...]

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How a Warehouse Can Reduce Costs and Increase Service Level

by Pete Abilla on January 24, 2012

warehouse consolidation, lean

In Lean, inventory is often viewed in a negative light. Indeed, inventory is one of the 7 deadly wastes. Is the traditional position of Lean justified in thinking so negatively against inventory and the warehousing that goes along with it? Free SigmaXL Download Single Piece Flow, while an ideal state for a company to be [...]

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Apple Supplier Responsibility Report: Requiring Management Systems

by Pete Abilla on January 17, 2012

management systems, supplier quality

Apple recently released their Apple 2012 Supplier Responsibility Report, which highlights the audits conducted in 2011, violations that occurred with their outsourced manufacturing and supply chain, and corrective actions put in place. Apple was very transparent in the creation of this report and I applaud them for that. Part of the report is spent on [...]

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Kaizen at AOL

by Pete Abilla on January 16, 2012

aol kaizen, aol broadband, aol chat room

We, lean folks, sometimes develop a narrow worldview that lean is just for manufacturing. While we know that lean is being applied to many different industries, we are sometimes surprised to hear of companies applying lean, especially if they are unconventional companies we never expected to be adopting lean; such is the case with AOL. [...]

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Kaizen in Everyday Life

by Pete Abilla on January 12, 2012

kaizen for everyday living

This article is a guest post from Noeradji Prabowo, a continuous improvement practitioner in Indonesia. In this article, he shares a simple and effective application of Kaizen and the Kaizen frame of mind to a common activity in business meetings: drinking coffee. Learn more about Noeradji Prabowo after the article. Beginning in November 2011, we [...]

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Jiffy Lube Oil Change and Queueing

by Pete Abilla on January 11, 2012

jiffy lube oil change coupons

I had an opportunity to visit a local Jiffy Lube for an oil change recently. I needed to change the oil in our car before moving to Tennessee. In the process of getting an oil change, I learned how Jiffy Lube approaches work and their adherence to metrics. This Jiffy Lube had 4 bays and [...]

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Supply Chain Sustainability and the Scorecard

by Pete Abilla on January 10, 2012

sustainable supply chain, sustainability scorecard

This post is sponsored by the University of San Francisco’s Supply Chain program. Learn more about the program and their focus on sustainability at the end of the post. Don’t Let Suppliers Rack up Bogeys on Your Sustainability Scorecard A sustainability scorecard is a system for companies to measure the sustainability of their different suppliers.  [...]

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