Ready; Set; lean: A sheetmetal-fabricating industry veteran shares some thoughts on eliminating waste, continuous improvement and shortening the time between order and cash

摘要

Most of my professional life has been spent working in Europe with different kinds of sheet-metal fabricators, and I was very pleased when I had the opportunity to travel around North America studying the way things were done here. I knew that all of the ideas regarding mass production, lean manufacturing and Six Sigma were formalized and championed in the United States by people like Ford, Taylor, Deming and Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of GE. And while these disciplines have evolved and been optimized as time has passed, the basic ideas remain valid.