Tag: maine
The Best Baked Ham You’ve Ever Had!
One day, Emma watched as her mother prepared dinner. Carrots and potatoes were boiling away on the stovetop as the mother took the ham from the fridge, put it on the cutting board, cut both ends off, then put it into the pan and into the oven to bake. “Mommy”, Emma asks, “why’d you cut […]
Reclaim control with a solid 5S program
Lean gives you options Years ago, I was the Manufacturing Manager of a medical device company here in CT. Because we were such a small place, in addition to running the manufacturing floor I was also the defacto “facilities guy”. Anything even remotely related to the building or grounds would come through my office – manufacturing related or […]
Why You Don’t Go Hiking in November
Having grown up in rural Maine as the son of a deer hunter, November (rifle season for whitetail) was often highly anticipated. Endless amounts of preparation went into making sure everything was ready – rifles sighted in and cleaned, boots waterproofed, oil changed in the four-wheeler. Perhaps the most important preparation step was making sure […]
The KISS Principle
In the early 1960’s, teenager Chiam Witz knew one thing: he wanted attention from girls. After trying all the usual things that boys that age do, he watched the Beatles on television. After seeing the droves of screaming girls he knew he had his answer: be in a band. After being a member of and […]
The “New Normal” and why it’s not Lean
It was an average Tuesday and I was working as an engineer at a large Aerospace manufacturer here in Connecticut. My boss sent me an email asking me to follow up on something for him because his boss needed an answer quick, which wasn’t unusual. What was off-center was that he had taken a vacation day that […]
How to Gemba like Michael Bolton
It was an especially hot September afternoon in the plant in South Carolina where I worked as a Project Engineer. There was no air conditioning anywhere, and the sound of the presses banging out parts didn’t do much to make anything more comfortable. But you would never have known that based upon the reaction that my […]