Strategos
Lean Briefing
The
Newsletter of Lean Manufacturing & Factory Science
June
21,
2003
www.strategosinc.com
Lean
Manufacturing Strategy
Empirical
Evidence for The Focused Factory
Our
previous issue introduced "The Focused
Factory." Many studies
support this idea with empirical evidence and
quantitative data. Our latest web page, Focused
Factory Benefits, reviews five such studies with charts
and summaries. They
illustrate the impact of focus on overhead costs, quality and operating
margins.
In
"A
Focus Example" we have a news article from The
Kansas City Star. It tells of a husband and wife who invested their
life savings in a business with only a single customer. Les
Davis explains the advantages of focus and how he wrested 90% of Colgate-
Palmolive's soap carton business from a non-focused competitor.
This
topic is surprisingly controversial. I received a number of emails with thoughtful
questions and some diverging views.
You can follow these e-conversations at our Focused
Factory Discussion page.
Our
next issue addresses the "Key
Manufacturing Task" and how to identify it. This is not
self-evident, but Professor Terry Hill, of Oxford University, has shown us
how to approach the question.
The
new web pages have a lot of "meat" and took longer than planned
(as usual). In addition our ISP had some serious problems last month and
you may have had trouble accessing the site. Everything seems to be back
to normal now and the next issue should be on schedule.
See
you then.
Quarterman
Lee
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