Focus and Leverage Part 84

First I want to thank everyone for a record-setting January in terms of page views of this blog.  I am humbled by the response we are getting, so thank you for your interest.  As many of you who follow this blog on a regular basis, Bruce Nelson's and my book, Epiphanized: Integrating Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma hit the streets on Monday and all signs point to brisk sales, so we want to thank everyone who purchased a copy.  Bruce and I hope it's an enjoyable read for everyone and we wanted to let you know that we're working on a sequel.

Some of you may know that on February 24th and 25th I'll be speaking at a CPI Symposium at Cal State Northridge.  This symposium is primarily focused on TLS, but there will also be presentations on Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) as well as the culture side of continuous improvement.  Some top-of-the-line speakers will be presenting so I encourage everyone to attend.  For those of you not familiar with this symposium which is in its 7th year, here is a link that will take you to it:

http://www.cpi-symposiums.com/12sympNorthridge.html

I am honored to be a part of this symposium and will be working side-by-side with one of my heroes in the TOC world, Bob Fox.  In the early days of TOC, Bob worked with the late Dr. Eli Goldratt and together they penned one of the classic TOC books, The Race.  If you haven't ever read it, I highly recommend it.  Most recently Bob collaborated with Reza (Russ) Pirasteh on a book entitled, Profitability With No Boundaries and it too is an excellent read.  Russ is as responsible for the TLS movement around the world as anyone when in 2006 he reported on his now quite famous study of 21 electronics plants studying Lean, Six Sigma and TLS in isolation.  In his landmark study, TLS, although only implemented in 6 of the plants. accounted for 89% of the financial gains!  I highly recommend Bob and Russ's book!  I will also be working closely with Bob Fox's son, Kevin who is becoming world-renowned, especially for his knowledge and work on CCPM.

This symposium should be a wonderful experience for all of the attendees and when you leave it, it is our hope that you will have a new understanding on how to implement a continuous improvement effort in your company that will surpass anything you've done before.  There will be workshops, case studies and probably Q & A sessions, so something for everyone.  Again, I encourage everyone to attend and to let your friends, especially your west coast friends know about it.

Bob Sproull