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The importance of visible leadership

The importance of visible leadership

By Jeff Shiver • on September 28, 2010

Just this week, I caught a few moments of the reality show where the CEO goes out “undercover” – albeit with a film crew – to capture what’s really happening in the trenches of an organization. It reminded me of how frequently we fail to understand what’s going on in our own world during the off-shifts

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Lean Manufacturing

Bring plant-floor zombies back to life; let them use their brains!

Bring plant-floor zombies back to life; let them use their brains!

By Eric Bigelow • on June 24, 2010

This blog will be somewhat short. I apologize, but I wanted to get a thought in this month. I hope that the content, as basic as it may be, sparks your interest enough to conduct some research on the subject.

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Lean in Washington? It’s an idea whose time has come!

Lean in Washington? It’s an idea whose time has come!

By Eric Bigelow • on May 7, 2010

Before I start, I want to relay that this is a rough thought, a preliminary idea. I will more than likely revisit this subject after I receive some e-mails and opinions. So, I will strive to make this

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Reliability Engineering

Money talks in quest to reduce waste

Money talks in quest to reduce waste

By Robert Apelgren • on April 28, 2010

Following along with one of my past blogs, “Reliability is a ‘green’ initiative”, I would like to talk some more about waste reduction. Waste is seen in many different forms in manufacturing, and

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Reduce or eliminate waste through training

Reduce or eliminate waste through training

By Robert Apelgren • on January 14, 2010

Following along with my blog “Reliability is a green initiative”, I would like to talk about waste reduction by training. Waste is seen in many different forms in manufacturing, and many of

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People Management

The value chain: No longer just for task-related processes

The value chain: No longer just for task-related processes

By Debbie Zmorenski • on September 13, 2010

Would you like to maximize the value impact of your talent management process? Consider conducting a value chain analysis of your organization’s logistical activities for recruiting, hiring, retaining

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How do your employees really feel about their jobs, the company?

How do your employees really feel about their jobs, the company?

By Debbie Zmorenski • on September 9, 2010

The Jet Blue flight attendant who wigged out last week, while admittedly demonstrating in an overly dramatic way that he was fed up with his job, is a sign of things to come if employers do not start paying

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Maintenance Excellence

In a learning organization, you must learn needs of workforce

In a learning organization, you must learn needs of workforce

By Jeff Shiver • on September 20, 2010

Before you attempt to ask people to learn something new, you should take a few minutes to diagnose their needs and how they might learn best. See, not everyone learns the same way, at the same rate, or

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Workplace lessons learned from a baseball game

Workplace lessons learned from a baseball game

By Jeff Shiver • on September 10, 2010

As some of you know, I spend a fair amount of time working in California. It happens I was there last week and thought I would share a story from that trip. It happens that one of my friends was part of

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Other Posts

A workplace situation. You’re in charge. What would you do?

Recently, I have been outside of the United States facilitating a “Skills for Maintenance Leadership and Supervision” course. One of the things that

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Developing your leadership skills through mentoring

Mentorship refers to a personal developmental relationship

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Employ standard work in maintenance tasks

In many organizations, the focus on maintenance tasks is too general in nature, trusting the craftsperson to do the right thing. While we should trust

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When it comes to strategic planning, don’t forget the people

It has been the norm for decades that organizational strategic plans have been created by upper levels of management. Annually, the best and the brightest

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Attain the double vision of reliability AND maintainability

Have you got double vision? I hope you do, but not in the sense I bet that you are thinking. No, I’m not talking about having one too many or that splitting

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Do you have a matrix to prioritize work orders?

One of the challenges that many organizations face is maintaining work order priorities in the wake of the emotional squeaky wheel that yells the loudest.

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Important considerations for maintenance planning and scheduling

In this post, we will continue with answering a couple of planner/scheduler questions. How do you initially train someone new to the planner/scheduler

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How to lead your company to success in a downturn

Leadership is a very broad and nebulous term. Generally accepted definitions of leadership are “The activity of leading” and/or “A person who rules

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Emotional Intelligence: It’s link to improving productivity and profitability

What is Emotional Intelligence? If you ask this question, you will probably get many different and vague answers. The fact is that the concept of EI in

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Avoid carbon copy syndrome; you must create your own lean system

First of all, thanks for the e-mails and comments. I received an e-mail about two days ago asking for my opinion on lean systems. In this blog, I will

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