May 17 2012
Lots of experts are still talking about how manufacturers in China, faced with rising labor and other manufacturing costs, might preserve their competitiveness and profitability. Here’s rundown on the strategies championed (mostly by those who manufacture nothing… but that’s another story). GO STATESIDE: Everyone chased cheap labor to China. Now that it’s not so cheap …
Apr 03 2012
For manufacturers in China, the most effective hedge against rising costs is attracting, developing and retaining talent. In this case, the most effective is also the most ethically correct. This from the Huffington Post: As I’ve been saying (over and over again), an incremental upsurge in labor rates is not cause for China manufacturers to flee the …
Mar 27 2012
OBAMA NOMINATES LEAN THINKER FOR WORLD BANK PRESIDENT When I read that President Obama nominated a guy named Jim Yong Kim for President of the World Bank, I thought his name sounded familiar. I finally checked him out on Wikipedia and realized he was the same guy I posted about back in September, 2009. I …
Mar 25 2012
A group of obviously committed students and alumni from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute run Rensselaer in China | Greater China Business Club. Their interview with me can be read here.
Jul 21 2010
In a response to the much blogged and tweeted Economist article “Is the era of cheap Chinese labour over?“, Economist guest contributor Tyler Cowen answers the question intelligently in his response “The important thing is Chinese productivity is rising“. Anyway, the money quote comes at the end of the article: In the question stated above, …
Sep 17 2009
I love hearing about how LEAN strategies can do more important things than just help companies make more money. Watch this video (or read the transcript) of Bill Moyers Journal for 9/11/09 where he interviews Dr. Jim Yong Kim, a public health expert and the new president of Dartmouth College. Without mentioning LEAN by name, …
May 27 2009
Last month I wrote a post, “Dumping your waste upstream isn’t LEAN“, giving an example of how one large American company I know (and have left unnamed) has been bullying it’s vendors into accepting the costs of wasteful stocking in order to lower it’s own costs and leadtimes, while actually raising their own costs in …
May 12 2009
Yesterday I visited a small factory owned by a friend of mine. I had visited the facility once before, when times were good and they had more orders than they could keep up with. As I said, business was good, but the harder they worked the more they had issues with delivery, quality and cash …
May 07 2009
LEAN is about reducing waste and adding value. Adding value for shareholders and customers is important, but to be truly successful in the long run, an organization should strive to add value to all of its relationships, benefiting its employees, its community and, of course, its vendors. Here’s an example of a “LEAN” organization that …
Apr 18 2009
A new article in the Financial Times discusses the new face of migrant labor in Dongguan. The article basically says that the oft-predicted worker unreast didn’t materialize because those predicting it envisioned the migrant workers of yesteryear (hordes of rural, unsophisticated “factory girls”) rather than the migrant workers of today (semi-urbanized, getting more sophisticated, with …
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