May 2012
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Why should we care about U.S. manufacturing any more?

As the loss of manufacturers and manufacturing jobs continues during the current recession, the debate continues about whether we should even care. The U.S. is now indisputably a service-based economy. And supporters argue that the erosion of manufacturing in the U.S. is not a bad thing. I was particularly taken aback by Robert Reich’s [...]

GM’s Failure – What Happened to Lean?

As the pundits pile on the eulogies and praise from the glory days and offer endless criticisms of GM’s catastrophic decline, people will be writing books and analyzing the decline and failure of GM for years to come.

But let’s look at GM from a lean enterprise point of view. GM tried to adopt [...]

Is What’s Good for Volvo Good for Its Suppliers?

In an interview in the IFPSM ezine, Bernt Ejbyfeldt, senior vice president of purchasing at Volvo Car Corporation, was asked whether Volvo planned to provide financial assistance to help its struggling suppliers. Ejbyfeldt said that Volvo wasn’t in a financial position to make loans to help its suppliers. So he suggested that suppliers help [...]

It’s the Customer, Stupid

I recently wrote a post for the Spend Matters blog, “12 Reasons Why Supplier Scorecards Fail” (updated, with one additional reason than my original post  on this site in December 2008). There were some insightful comments, including one about the customer’s role in supplier performance success. Rob Handfield made a pertinent comment that it [...]

In a Supply Chain Failure, a Bad Workman Blames His Tools

The latest victims of the economic downturn seem to be suppliers in the electronics supply chain. As reported in the May 18th WSJ article “Clarity is Missing Link in Supply Chain“, as business began to contract, Best Buy dramatically cut back their forecasts to electronics companies such as Toshiba just before the holiday season last [...]

If the shoe fits

In the pursuit of cheaper shoes, yet infinite variety, shoe companies and fashionistas seem to have gone awry. Recently I went to the “Shoe Mega-Store” at Marshalls to look for a pair of new business-y shoes.  There was certainly no lack of quantity or variety of shoes. The Mega Store was really mega. But [...]