There are many myths in the world, ranging from Bigfoot to bumblebee's defying the laws of physics (they don't) and of course the Loch Ness Monster (who is just shy and wants to be left alone). It seems that myths are still very real in the world of work as well. Work-life balance is impossible, remote working is inefficient, workplace conflict can...

Productivity is a fickle thing, it can drive you to make some interesting and costly decisions in the name of getting more out of your process. Organisations the world over get sucked into the belief that to improve productivity, you have to open the wallet and spend the profits (or the overdraft) to become more productive. How much are you being b...

I always remember the 1st time I helped implement 5S into a factory. 5S (Sort, Set, Shine, Standardise and Sustain) is one of the many 'tools' used by organisations when moving to lean thinking. The driving force was actually from the maintenance department at the time rather than operations, which still surprises some people. People stil...

One of the challenges with quality management is building systems and processes that are simple enough for people to use, and want to use, but be robust enough to give you what you need to achieve. As I've talked about before, we spend a lot of time with clients helping them simplify their systems, people will use a simple system every day of the w...

My daughter is 9, I joke that she's 9 going on 19! There are many reasons I'm proud of my daughter, too many to list here but her inquisativeness is fantastic and when I started the I actually got her busienss cards made saying "Trainee Big Boss" as a bit of a joke but she's taken a keen interest in things as we went along. So I want to share ...

Every organisation has problems, it doesn't matter how big or how small the organisation, there are always problems. They come in all shapes and sizes from little niggles like there's no A3 paper for the printer again to we have to do a full recall of the product all the way to the more serious we may have to shut the company down. There is a myria...

We were really honoured to be invited onto MANGO's webinar series where we got to talk about one of our LEAN passions, 5s. If you want to get started in LEAN then 5s is the way to go and listening to our webinar should give you some great hints on where to start, what to do and what not to do. We hope you find it helpful.  D...

When is Continuous Improvement not Continuous Improvement? It's not a dad joke, it's one of my favourite annoying questions I pose to clients when we are working through any form of LEAN or 6 Sigma programs.I'll wait a little while as people ponder the question... go on you as well… OK, so When is Continuous Improvement Not Continuous Improvement? ...

You will have heard the saying - if a tree falls in the forest does it make a noise, well Productivity is kind of the same, Are you really productive if no one knows or rather how do you know you are productive if you are not actually measuring it? A question we always ask clients is how you view your business? Is it effective, ...

Volume is the solution, volume will make you more productive, volume will reduce costs. That's the goal, reduce costs and send more money to the profit line. The more you can spread your set up costs over a larger run (like spreading jam on toast) the cheaper things will be and the more profit you will make. Problem solved.. just make more! Except,...