Author Archives: Dave
Serving the Customer
On the way to work the other day, I stopped in at a small local coffee shop for a bagel and a bottle of juice. I had passed this shop many times, and thought it was about time I gave
The Message and the Medium
October 2010
The president of a well known company that has grown from nothing to $100 million in annual revenue in 16 years, made the surprising statement at this year’s APICS conference that his company has never spent a penny on advertising.
On Technical Writing . . .
August 2010
Prospects won’t buy what they don’t understand (at least enough to appreciate the value proposition) so vendors have to bridge the gap somehow. Enter the technical writer. The writer might be a good journalist, but if he or she is not really technical, or can’t clearly communicate complex ideas, the engineer will have to spend considerable time explaining the technology to the writer so that the material can be presented to the prospect. There’s not a lot of efficiency in that scenario.
Can a Company be too Lean?
August 2010
The Wall Street Journal, quoting a Gartner Research analyst, recently reported that Nissan lost production because of lean. The article said that “Nissan Motor Co. had to close four of its five Japanese assembly plants, costing 15,000 units of lost production, and two plants in the U.S., with an undetermined loss of production, because of lean process methods. Each of the six plants was closed for at least three days.”
It (Still) Pays to Advertise
July 2010
“It pays to advertise” was a popular slogan from the 1950s that is still proving itself as true today. I was reminded of this recently in the little town where I live.
Supply Chain Risk
July 2010
A volcano in Iceland erupts and shuts down air travel to and from parts of Europe. Chinese workers strike for higher wages. A supplier’s plant has a devastating fire. Increased security procedures cause delays in getting import shipments cleared through the port. Commodity prices soar – then tumble. Petroleum prices triple, increasing all transportation costs.
Hits and Clicks
June 2010
Remember the bad old days of the dot-com bubble when the big idea was to deliver “eyeballs”? Lots of companies launched websites and eagerly counted “hits” until the advertisers realized that having their image on the user’s screen does not mean that they have made a connection. Dot-coms that couldn’t deliver “clicks” quickly faded away.
The Other ROI
June 2010
When you bought and implemented your system, you were looking for (and hopefully measuring) the Return on Investment – ROI. Now that you have had the system in place for some time, wouldn’t you like to Re-energize Operational Improvements?
Cheaper, better, faster?
May 2010
The subtitle of my Lean + Green Manufacturing blog is “…making products cheaper, better, faster”. Not very elegant perhaps, but in line with the traditional mandate for manufacturing management. Of course, satisfying the customer is the ultimate goal.
Gold-Medal Reverse Logistics
A company’s introduction to reverse logistics typically is based on the return of reusable shipping containers or pallets, product returns handling, or recycling or reprocessing of production scrap and offal materials. These indeed are the best places to start for
