Design

The Customer Code – are you meeting it?

One of the greatest misconceptions about Lean process and methods is that they cheapen the product. Lean is first and always about value, and the…

Design

Poster child for bad design

The accompanying picture was used recently with what was an otherwise good article on how to create profitable design. That article is much bigger in…

Project Management

Hangin’ with HCG: big, rich and smart!

Recently I was asked to present to a group of purchasing managers for a Top 20 builder, led by a Corporate VP who truly gets it when it comes to Lean…

Best Practices

'If you think you can, or you cannot, you are right' — Lean Tuesday with Scott Sedam

Henry Ford was a genius and if not father of the automobile per se, he was arguably father of the automotive industry. As usually accompanies genius…

Building Materials

A supplier never forgets

In the past month I have had the opportunity to present to and spend time with two different groups of 25 successful, independent lumber &…

Business

Honest wrong beliefs or just pig-headedness?

Both my grandfathers were self-made men who did well during the Great Depression and retired quite comfortably, if not wealthy by today’s standards.…

Best Practices

You don't have time NOT to do this

Probably the simultaneously most understandable yet least valid excuse for not launching a Lean implementation is that your staff is overloaded and…

Best Practices

Lean means cheap, ugly houses – NOT!

Todd Hallett and I are working with a fantastic smaller builder in California this week. They really “get it” and are very open to input from all of…

Soft costs? That hurt so much, how could it be anything but hard? — Lean Tuesday with Scott Sedam

I am finishing up my September column for Professional Builder based on a list of the 10 biggest myths of Lean Building, and I just wrote about one…

Design

Honest wrong beliefs: Sometimes it’s what we know that gets in the way — Lean Tuesday with Scott Sedam

As I write this week’s blog on a plane from Detroit to Vegas, I happened upon an article in the Delta in-flight magazine about healthy eating and…