Posted by business901 on March 29, 2010
In part 3 of this 3 part podcast Mike Dalton the founder of Guided Innovation Group, discussed Alliances and tools used in Innovation. 
In Mikes recent book, Simplifying Innovation: Doubling speed to market and new product profits - with your existing resources
he discussed the Guided Innovation’s unique TOC-based approach to rapid innovation improvement is helping companies slash time to market in half and nearly double new product profits. Whether you are struggling to get more sales impact from your new product and innovation investment or are growing strongly but still interested in taking your innovation performance to the next level. Customer Value Lens and much more. The book was just released in January and has received some good reviews.
Related Posts:
Podcast 1: TOC in Innovation
Podcast 2: Customer Value Lens
Podcast 3: Alliances and Innovation Tools
Posted by business901 on March 29, 2010
In part 2 of this 3 part podcast Mike Dalton the founder of Guided Innovation Group, discussed The Customer Value Len. Mike says, "That means the first thing you have to do is be out in the marketplace, be out with customers, potential customers or new markets and be looking for the problems, the things that they are trying to do that are difficult for them."
In Mikes recent book, Simplifying Innovation: Doubling speed to market and new product profits - with your existing resources
he discussed the Customer Value Lens and much more. The book was just released in January and has received some good reviews.
“A Theory of Constraints approach to the process of innovation was long overdue. Production, project management, supply chain, and policy constraint analysis have all been comprehensively addressed. But until now, no one has thought to examine the ramifications of constraint theory on the challenge of innovation. Mike Dalton’s novel was worth waiting for. Simplifying Innovation synthesizes innovation best practices and the focusing step framework to create a powerful new application of TOC. Let it stimulate your imagination as it did mine.” –H. William Dettmer, author of Strategic Navigation
“Inside a fascinating business novel, that I literally couldn’t put down, Mike Dalton has created a hands-on field manual to extending the Theory of Constraints to innovation – I only wished I had the benefit of Mike’s insights during my days as an R&D leader in Bell Labs.” –Dr. Matthew W. Sagal, co-author of The Strongest Link
Mike's company, Guided Innovation has created The Guided Innovation System™ , their unique TOC-based approach to rapid innovation improvement is helping companies slash time to market in half and nearly double new product profits.
Related Posts:
Podcast 1: TOC in Innovation
Podcast 2: Customer Value Lens
Podcast 3: Alliances and Innovation Tools
Posted by business901 on March 29, 2010
Mike Dalton was my guest on the Business901 podcast . Mike is the founder of Guided Innovation Group, whose simple mission is helping companies turn their new product innovation into bottom-line impact. The Guided Innovation System™ , their unique TOC-based approach to rapid innovation improvement is helping companies slash time to market in half and nearly double new product profits. 
Mike’s new product innovation experience started with over 24 years of executive management leadership at the SC Johnson family of companies, the multi-billion dollar, privately held consumer and industrial products multinational. He has grown new and existing businesses as a general manager and in marketing, business development, and manufacturing leadership roles. He holds an MBA in marketing and finance from the University of Chicago and a degree in chemical engineering and energy technology from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He’s a regular speaker for executive groups and trade associations and has spoken on open innovation strategies at the National Academy of Sciences. Mike lives in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin with his wife, Carol, and their rescue pitbull terrier.
His new book, Simplifying Innovation, is the first to apply the Theory of Constraints for high leverage innovation improvement. You can learn how to get more impact from your innovation by visiting the Guided Innovation website or visiting Mike’s blog for a wide array of reports and other free innovation resources.
Related Posts:
Podcast 1: TOC in Innovation
Podcast 2: Customer Value Lens
Podcast 3: Alliances and Innovation Tools
Posted by business901 on March 22, 2010
Kanban just seems too simple to be that effective,
Posted by business901 on March 22, 2010
Kanban just seems too simple to be that effective, or is that the beauty of it?
Listen to Jim Benson discuss the intricacies of not only Personal Kanban but how Kanban can be used effectively within industry. Jim was seldom lost for words as you will see and his passion of the subject is obvious. 
Jim Benson incorporates his background in cognitive psychology, government, and management to build community through policy and technology. His company, Modus Cooperandi, helps organizations change through the application of Lean principles, Agile methodologies, and social media. He is also the developer of the productivity tool Personal Kanban, an adaptation of industrial kanban which helps individuals and small teams actualize. His book on Personal Kanban, which applies Lean thinking to daily living, will be out in Spring 2010.
Jim says, "Personal Kanban is an idea that arose from necessity. I began a personal kanban prior to starting Modus Cooperandi, but it didn’t translate as cleanly from the programming and industrial world as I would have liked. It wasn’t until one day when Corey Ladas and I sat down and really started to talk about the differences between industrial kanban and personal kanban that things really started to gel."
Posted by business901 on March 17, 2010
Lonnie Wilson, the owner and principal of Quality Consultants is an expert in Lean Manufacturing techniques and applications. He not only instructs management professionals in the applications of these lean techniques; he is an on-the-floor-implementation professional. His new book, How To Implement Lean Manufacturing was released by McGraw-Hill, August 2009.
Below is a sample of the content in the podcast:
Joe: What makes sustaining them so difficult for people? You put a process in, this is what we are going to do from now on. What makes that tough?
Lonnie: Boy, I'll tell you ‑‑ now that is a great question and I get asked that question frequently. It seems to be almost obvious that people would say "Well, OK, we made this gain, now let's sustain it." It's a whole lot better to build on progress than deterioration. The truth of the matter is that people in real life ‑‑ people have tremendous, tremendous problems sustaining the gains. I think the single, biggest thing that I can put my finger on is the business' attitude towards problems. I find, particularly in the West, and I don't like to make a Japanese/Western dichotomy, but at some level there is.
I find, in the West, that we look at problems as a royal pain in the "tush." We don't want them. The fewer problems we have, the happier we are. Some of my Japanese clients, when they find a problem they almost celebrate it. They recognize they found a weakness in the system. The system is, therefore, deficient and now we have got a way to improve it.
They look at problems as opportunities to make their system better, and I think that carries over into then, how they finish up those problems. Once you have solved the problem ‑‑ to sustain it, there's a whole series of activities you need to do. You need to maintain it. You need to standardize it. All of that is just good old‑fashioned hard work.
To me, that is the most fundamental thing that I find that makes people ‑‑ makes companies ‑‑ shy away from sustaining issues, is first, how they view the problem. I think the second thing is that once a problem gets fixed, it's very easy to jump to the next problem, because you don't have any more symptoms. What happens is you take on the next problem. Everybody's interested in progress, so they want to make more and more progress. They forget that the last thing they fixed maybe isn't fixed completely. It's fixed enough so they don't have any current symptoms, but it's going to reappear at a later date.
That discipline that it takes to think through the possible future problems, put fixes in place for things that haven't even gone wrong; anticipate what might happen. That just isn't quite as sexy as moving onto the next problem and solving it.
Part 2 of the Podcast: Implement Lean Manufacturing
Business901 Website
Posted by business901 on March 15, 2010
Lonnie Wilson, the owner and principal of Quality Consultants is an expert in Lean Manufacturing techniques and applications. He not only instructs management professionals in
the applications of these lean techniques; he is an on-the-floor-implementation professional. His new book, How To Implement Lean Manufacturing
, was released by McGraw Hill, August 2009.
He is well versed in problem solving skills. He is an expert in statistical problem solving as well as logical techniques such as Kepner-Tregoe methodology. He is a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt and he not only utilizes the Six Sigma tools but he is an active Six Sigma trainer. He is very comfortable in the classroom and even more so on the factory floor. He is equally adept at working with top management as well as the line worker. He is an aggressive problem solver and with his 39 years in industry, Mr. Wilson has developed the ability to reduce complex problems to simple workable solutions.
In addition to his work in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing, Mr. Wilson has developed and taught classes in a wide variety of topics including many statistical tools such as DOE, SPC MSA, QFD and human relations skills such as Advanced Facilitation, Hoshin-Kanri Policy Deployment and Team Based Problem Solving, to name a few.
Posted by business901 on March 8, 2010
My guest this and last week was “Dr. Lisa” Lang. She is considered the foremost expert in the world in applying Theory of Constraints to Marketing and currently the President of the Science of Business. She recently served as the Global Marketing Director for Dr Goldratt who is the father of Theory of Constraints and author of The Goal. Dr Lisa has a PhD in Engineering and is a TOCICO certified expert in Theory of Constraints. She is currently serving on the TOCICO Board of Directors. 
This week podcast centered on applying the Theory of Constraints externally or when your Constraint is in the market place. Dr. Lisa offers some great ideas on how to market utilizing the Theory of Constraints and creating that all important "Mafia Offer." If you would like to learn more about the Mafia Offer, go to Dr. Lisa's website the Science of Business.
Dr. Lisa is the author of 3 books: Maximizing Profitability, Achieving a Viable Vision, Increasing Cash Velocity, and Mafia Offers is due out in May 2010. Science of Business specializes in increasing profits of highly custom businesses and applying Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma to sales and marketing, having developed the Mafia Offer Boot Camp, Velocity Scheduling System, and Project Velocity System.
Before becoming a consultant, Dr Lisa was in operations, strategic planning, purchasing, R&D, and quality while working for Clorox, Anheuser-Busch and Coors Brewing. She is known for having developed the Anheuser-Busch plastic beer bottle. In addition to consulting, Dr Lisa is a highly sought after Vistage/TEC speaker on “Maximizing Profitability”. Dr Lisa also provides professional keynote speeches and workshops for organizations like: TLMI, ASC, NTMA, MCAA, NAPM and private events for corporations like: TESSCO, Bostik, GE, Pfizer and Sandvik Coromant.
P.S. The Mafia offer is only as good as what you have created using the Theory of Constraints internally. Listen to Part 1 of this podcast first, Theory of Constraints equals Focus and Leverage
Posted by business901 on March 1, 2010
My guest this week (yes, we talked to long) and next week was “Dr. Lisa” Lang. She is considered the foremost expert in the world in applying Theory of Constraints to Marketing and currently the President of the Science of Business. She recently served as the Global Marketing Director for Dr Goldratt who is the father of Theory of Constraints and author of The Goal. Dr Lisa has a PhD in Engineering and is a TOCICO certified expert in Theory of Constraints. She is currently serving on the TOCICO Board of Directors. 
This week podcast centered on applying the Theory of Constraints internally within an organization and creating a Control Point within your system. If you focus on what’s important and leverage your resources where they can have the largest impact, they will be quick and substantial. Theory of Constraints is the focusing mechanism and then Lean and Six Sigma tools are used to leverage.
Dr. Lisa is the author of 3 books: Maximizing Profitability, Achieving a Viable Vision, Increasing Cash Velocity, and Mafia Offers is due out in May 2010. Science of Business specializes in increasing profits of highly custom businesses and applying Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma to sales and marketing, having developed the Mafia Offer Boot Camp, Velocity Scheduling System, and Project Velocity System.
Before becoming a consultant, Dr Lisa was in operations, strategic planning, purchasing, R&D, and quality while working for Clorox, Anheuser-Busch and Coors Brewing. She is known for having developed the Anheuser-Busch plastic beer bottle. In addition to consulting, Dr Lisa is a highly sought after Vistage/TEC speaker on “Maximizing Profitability”. Dr Lisa also provides professional keynote speeches and workshops for organizations like: TLMI, ASC, NTMA, MCAA, NAPM and private events for corporations like: TESSCO, Bostik, GE, Pfizer and Sandvik Coromant.