BOSTON, January 7, 2019 - The Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership, Inc. (GBMP) announced today it has moved its location of business from Newton, MA to 27-43 Wormwood Street, Tower Point, Suite 410, Boston, MA 02110 where it will share office, meeting and training space with the Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc. (LEI). Both organizations are 501(c)(3) nonprofit education and publishing organizations dedicated to advancing Lean thinking and practice.  

LEI moved its office to Boston in October 2018 to enhance its ability to develop new products and services in the center of Boston’s most active innovation and entrepreneurial community, the Seaport District. 

According to GBMP President Bruce Hamilton, “Co-location will allow GBMP and LEI to better serve the needs of our respective Lean communities. The Boston office location provides GBMP’s customers easier access to LEI’s training facilities, including its hands-on learning simulation. It is our hope to use our complementary capabilities to better serve existing and future customers of both organizations, accelerate the distribution of knowledge and learning, and add depth and breadth to GBMP’s community impact.”

Added LEI’s Chairman John Shook,“Over the past 20 years LEI has seen its reach and impact steadily grow across the globe through thought leadership, iconic learning materials, and effective co-learning partnerships. One of our most trusted and valued partners has been GBMP. As LEI enters its third decade we look forward to deepening and strengthening our partnership with GBMP, initially by sharing office space and eventually by collaborating in the development of new knowledge, products and services. Since both LEI and GBMP believe action-based learning is the key to effective capability development, we look forward to working and learning together at companies throughout the Northeast and sharing new insights into successful organizational transformations with our communities”.     

GBMP offers hands-on, customized Lean & Six Sigma consulting and training in the Northeast US since 1994. Its mission is to perpetuate a positive future for industry through successful implementations of continuous improvement principles and Toyota Production System values. As a licensed affiliate of the Shingo Institute, GBMP offers best-in-class Shingo Model™ training throughout the US. GBMP also provides a membership community, public workshops, benchmarking plant tours and an annual conference, and produces award-winning Lean training materials, among them “Toast Kaizen”, the #1 Lean training video in the world.

LEI was founded in 1997 by management expert James Womack. LEI’s mission is to make things better for individuals, companies and society throughout the world through Lean thinking and practice. It helps the Lean community create more value and prosperity while consuming the fewest possible resources. It achieves its mission through public and onsite workshops, learning tours, online education, events, learning materials, and co-learning partnerships and projects. Through research and co-learning partnerships with universities, companies and organizations across all sectors and throughout the world, and an online global community of over a million users, LEI gathers the best in Lean learning to share with its global Lean community.  

Every December the man in the red suit delivers cheer and presents to millions of happy children around the world.  It seems like magic, but a closer observation of Santa’s behavior demonstrates that Santa actually employed critical elements of TPS philosophy long before Toyota itself did.  For example,  Shotaro Kamiya, Toyota’s first president of sales, hired away from Nippon GM in 1935, championed a new idea at Toyota:  “The customer comes first, the dealer second, and the manufacturer third.”  Kamiya’s “Customer First” philosophy was revolutionary for Toyota and bedrock in the philosophy.

Yet, as can be seen from this documentary footage of Mr. Claus,   Santa was abiding by this ideal many years earlier.   His chagrin, when asked to “push” toys that were slow movers, indicates St. Nick’s abhorrence for speculative production also known as overproduction.  After all, the Christmas list was the original Kanban.  Without this pull system, Santa’s elves would, like many manufacturers, always be very busy building the wrong things; and Santa would have to leave backorder notes under the tree on Christmas morning.  As for standardization, anyone familiar with Norad’s Santa tracker will attest to his standardized conveyance route.  And Oh!  What a Takt time for the jolly old elf!  I have to admit that despite my enduring admiration for Toyota’s Production System, none other than Santa Claus is the penultimate just-in-time provider.   Thank you, Santa.

To everyone else, ho ho ho.  Have a restful and happy holiday.  Gratitude.
​
O.L.D.