OE Newsletters Archives

OE Newsletters

Lean Horoscope

I find there’s something intriguing about a horoscope and knowing what the stars predict. For a bit of fun, we decided to create a "Lean Horoscope". This amusing post contains snippets worth thinking about…you’ll want to read them all!

Management’s 5 Obligations to Teams

Teams are the life blood of the company’s capability to serve its customers. A team can achieve much more than the sum of its parties, and building teams should be, maybe more than ever, a management priority. Find out the five critical areas for successful team development.

Joel Barker: Overcoming Resistance to Innovation

This month we look back at sage advice from Joel Barker the individual responsible for making “paradigm” a household word back. While Joel’s focus in the article is overcoming resistance to innovation, we believe his advice is pertinent to overcoming resistance to any change and we find it just a relevant for today’s workplace.

Cell Makes Quote Process Flow

From the standpoint of a Lean manufacturer, the process of producing a part quote is no different than actually making the part. You think in terms of flow, value-added, teamwork, and multi-skilled employees for both processes. In this month's From the Archives, read how a division of Aeroquip significantly improved their Customer Service team's response time and reduced the quote-processing cycle time.

Company Finds That Teamwork Serves Customers, Stimulates Employee Creativity

This month’s From the Archives illustrates the powerful benefits of collaboratively involving customers in new product development and subsequent sharing of improvement ideas. Though not referenced by name, the article also reflects the Obeya approach to facilitated project management, as well as elements of 3P, EEM, and Maintenance Prevention Design.

Teams Motivate Employees To Improve Service, Cut Cost

In this month's From the Archives,"Teams Motivate Employees to Improve Service, Cut Costs," Banc One Corporation shares their timeless story of how identifying and solving service problems allowed them to reduce rework and correct errors, which led to reduced costs, improved bottom line sustainability, and greater customer satisfaction.

Transforming Maintenance Role Helps Amtex Take Lean Manufacturing To A Higher Level

In this month's archive article, learn how auto supplier Amtex discovered the key to improving Lean manufacturing and business goals was to integrate TPM with existing CI activities, and get maintenance working with operators to turn problems into opportunities for improvement.