Tim Hutzel will never forget the first time, back in 1995, that he walked the shop floor at Hamilton Caster & Manufacturing Co., a maker of industrial wheels, casters, carts and trailers in Hamilton, OH. Hutzel had just left his job as director of lean transformation at GE Aviation to strike out on his own as a consultant and lean guru. Hamilton Caster was his first customer.

By the late 1940s, many U.S. manufacturers began creating and building products for the post-WWII economy.

NOVI, MI—Creform Corp. has opened a new regional sales office and manufacturing facility here to serve the Northeast and Midwest U.S. markets and Canada.

There are two opposite ways to equip factories to respond quickly to downstream customer orders: One way is for sequential production, and the other is for concurrent production. Both draw heavily from best practices in lean manufacturing.

There’s lots of talk about a manufacturing renaissance. Some call it a resurgence, others a revolution, but the name doesn’t matter. There’s also been a lot of argument over the magnitude of the decline in manufacturing and how to measure it. Some say there wasn’t a decline at all. None of that matters, either.

"The Music Man” takes place in a Midwestern hamlet called River City. The town that it’s based on is Mason City, IA, and the river that flows through it is the Winnebago. If you follow that river a few miles west, you’ll end up in Forest City, which is home to another American classic: Winnebago motor homes.

DETROIT—It’s a basic tenet of mass production: Making things in batches is the most efficient way to manufacture anything. So why, then, is lean manufacturing evangelist Ted Duclos arguing that America can revitalize its manufacturing base by making things one at a time?

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Boeing and Lockheed were among several companies honored last week for leadership in manufacturing by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.

The value of standard work is clear: improved productivity and quality. With standard work, the process is well documented, its yield is high, its cycle time is rock solid, and everyone has been trained to do it. It worked well once, so we do it again and again.

We’re all aware of the consequences of paying too much.