When I first started with my present company, over 23 years ago, I became the Apple IIe expert. This required me to learn CPM/DOS, Visicalc, and beware of bending fragile hardware connectors. In a few years the IBM compatible PC came along, and I needed to learn Assembly code for installing hard drives. While these technical changes were occurring my company was exiting the mainframe computer business, entering into the internet era, and merging with another large Fortune 200 company. The one constant was change on both the technology and corporate culture fronts. I remember the day an email was sent to all research labs employees instructing us not to use the words "red" or "blue" while referring to our former companies. Obviously there was not a corporate vendetta against these two colors. My company was trying to change, and it was difficult (still is).
If you've had any similar experiences, browse on over to the Lean Blog and listen to the first of a three part series of interviews with author and professor Jeffrey Liker (University of Michigan) who just published: Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way. His book is all about the necessity of change and culture in building lean organizations.
- Part 1: Lean Plog Podcast Interview with Jeffrey Liker
- Access the other sessions (when posted) via this link
As lean operations are imperative to successful engineering design and operations, I will add this series to both my engineering podcast search engine and engineering learning wiki (podcast page).
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