As I visit companies in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, I consistently hear that lean manufacturing does not work in job shops. The belief is that lean manufacturing only works in low mix/high volume environments, e.g. Toyota, but not in the high mix/low volume environments typified by most job shops. In other words, there is no such thing as a lean
Read moreIt’s hard to believe in this day and age how many businesses still choose not to take advantage of the benefits of adopting a Lean culture. As a business owner or officer, you are free, of course, to make a decision not to implement Lean – after all it’s your company. Maybe you’re already making more money than you can
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Full-year trade data have been posted – no increase in manufacturing imports, but exports down, and the 2015 trade deficit in manufactures was the highest ever.
Read moreHere at the Great Lakes TAAC, we keep a close eye on how imports are affecting U.S. manufacturing. As I’ve written in previous blog posts, the import threat is not going away. The low cost of imports is just getting lower. That means a continued uphill battle for many manufacturers, especially the small and mid-sized companies that we work with. We’d
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The Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms program (TAAF), which we run here in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, is successful for many reasons. Numerous studies and evaluations of TAAF have been done over the years. These have consistently found the program to be effective and efficient – but none of them have ever fully identified why it works. The TAAF program
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