Comments on: Legislating The Toyota Production System: Making the Application of Lean the Law

By: Wil

Wil — Tue, 22 May 2012 15:09:01 +0000

Lean & TOC are currently being used extensively by the US military, NASA, and other agencies of our Federal Government. We taxpayers are funding training of personnel both within these agencies & within private contractors working with them, developing hundreds, if not thousands of trained personnel in Lean & TOC.

I submit that we need a president that can exhibit the same type of leadership and follow Gov. Gregoire’s lead.

By: Stephen Stanley

Stephen Stanley — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 16:01:47 +0000

How is the Governor’s executive order any different than a CEO deciding to implement Lean in his company? Colorado’s law is non-binding and passed by the legislature, not executive order. No reporting requirement and no binding bureaucracy, just a recommendation that people in government think rationally about waste and eliminating it when implementing new policy. I sense some knee-jerk ideological thinking here rather than good quality thinking: If we believe Lean is the pursuit of zero waste and if we believe that it is applicable in situations outside of manufacturing, why would it not benefit governments, regardless of the political party in power? And why does the party in power matter, unless the major problem is with the party in the majority, not the Lean methodology the states want to use to eliminate waste in their government.

By: Jamie Flinchbaugh

Jamie Flinchbaugh — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:34:49 +0000

It’s the righht sentiment. This seems like strong command-and-control, but of course, this is how a lot of things get done in government. It would probably be best if it only applied while he was in office, because this needs to be backed up by the commitment with which it was signed.

Conneticutt tried this, although they tried to get a law passed through their legislature. It came with the usual bureaucracy, such as producing an annual report on your agency’s lean efforts. It was lobbied by their MEP, CONNSTEP, and of course the bill had in it a clause that essentially required you to use CONNSTEP’s services. Fortunately, it didnt pass.

Jamie Flinchbaugh
JamieF.com

By: Kevin Perez

Kevin Perez — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:19:38 +0000

Not that I think it should matter but I was thinking that for something as esoteric as Lean to be the basis for new government regulation in a time so soon after a major economic recession, that the Governor of Washington had to be a Democrat. A quick search tells me that Christine Gregoire (D) has been Governor of the state of Washington since January 12, 2005. Re: The previous post. Colorado’s Governor is also a Democrat.

My home state is Connecticut where I would think Lean by way of manufacturing – the small arms industry, Sikorksy Aircraft, Pratt & Whitney, US Surgical, Electric Boat Corporation, etc. – is not so esoteric. And the sitting Governor in CT is a Democrat. I’ll forward your post Pete. Thank you.

By: Stephen Stanley

Stephen Stanley — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:41:24 +0000

The Colorado legislature passed a similar law last year. It’s non-binding but calls on all governmental agencies to consider the principles of Lean in their actions. I haven’t seen a lot of results just yet but I’d hope, at some point in the future, to see some Lean jobs at the state level.