In today's global business arena, the shop floor now covers the world, and what ties everything together is communication. Author Sam Yankelevitch challenges readers to apply the transformational magic of lean thinking to the waste and confusion that plague global supply chains when cultures collide and meaning gets mangled in even the simplest conversations. Using entertaining real-life stories, Lean Potion #9 demonstrates that communication is a process and illustrates how lean champions like you can adapt familiar lean concepts and tools--such as Five S, PDCA, and the 7 Wastes--to address miscommunications that cause unbudgeted costs, confusion, and frustration. Lean Potion # 9 is a call to action for leaders at all levels to embrace the power of lean to reengineer communication processes. Communication is the next lean frontier. Are you ready to explore it?

Understanding what lean manufacturing is does not take rocket science, nor does it take a conference of ten experts to bear down to the basic concepts. Simply put, lean manufacturing is the achievement of the greatest efficiency and profitability for a company by eliminating the wasteful methods and activities that are commonly present in corporate regimes. At first glance, some firms are intimated with the thought of adopting lean manufacturing because of its fancy sounding name. But, if truth be told, it is actually easier than seems. What you just need to have is the dedication and the discipline to see things through and make change happen.

How America can rebuild its industrial landscape to sustain an innovative economy. America is the world leader in innovation, but many of the innovative ideas that are hatched in American start-ups, labs, and companies end up going abroad to reach commercial scale. Apple, the superstar of innovation, locates its production in China (yet still reaps most of its profits in the United States). When innovation does not find the capital, skills, and expertise it needs to come to market in the United States, what does it mean for economic growth and job creation? Inspired by the MIT Made in America project of the 1980s, Making in America brings experts from across MIT to focus on a critical problem for the country. MIT scientists, engineers, social scientists, and management experts visited more than 250 firms in the United States, Germany, and China. In companies across America-from big defense contractors to small machine shops and new technology start-ups-these experts tried to learn how we can rebuild the industrial landscape to sustain an innovative economy. At each stop, they asked this basic question: "When you have a new idea, how do you get it into the market?" They found gaping holes and missing pieces in the industrial ecosystem. Even in an Internet-connected world, proximity to innovation and users matters for industry. Making in America describes ways to strengthen this connection, including public-private collaborations, new government-initiated manufacturing innovation institutes, and industry/community college projects. If we can learn from these ongoing experiments in linking innovation to production, American manufacturing could have a renaissance.