Word: muda
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...That look includes a special line of (what else?) White Shoes sneakers designed by Bandung-based clothing retailer 347, as well as their own model of Vespa scooter - the ultimate Mod accessory. Artwork for the band's latest release, the five-song EP Skenario Masa Muda, reveals an abiding passion for Mod style. In a photograph mocked-up to resemble a 1960s postcard, band members are shown posing in a tailor's shop, like a clutch of Carnaby Street dandies...
...kaizen, meaning a worker's commitment to finding ways to do his job better and more efficiently. On the Hofu assembly line, a group of Americans clutching stopwatches and clipboards hovered around Kazuyuki Toda, a Japanese worker, as he demonstrated how to do a job poorly, with too much muda, or wasted motion. The Americans were then asked to suggest ways of doing the job faster. Their ideas ranged from simple improvements, like grabbing a handful of bolts at once instead of stepping back to the bolt tray after using each one, to the installation of a moving parts tray...
What they're saying is, let's discuss (nemawashi) how to keep making improvements (kaizens) and avoid waste (muda). And that's what they're doing. This is not how they talked -- or worked -- when GM ran this factory six years...
...Watch that muda...
...NUMMI was established, every one of its 2,500 employees has had hundreds of hours of training. Nearly 500 of them were sent to Toyota City in Japan. They are not learning how to make cars. They are being taught how to work together more efficiently. More kaizens, less muda. "NUMMI is different," says assembly-line inspector Martha Gendel, "because the worker is being treated differently...