{"id":1340,"date":"2009-05-26T05:16:37","date_gmt":"2009-05-26T12:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?p=1340"},"modified":"2014-09-23T14:57:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T19:57:22","slug":"the-source-of-dirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/the-source-of-dirt\/1340\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos Kaizen: The Source of Dirt"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"a296a24fa2fc69ef5487857f02f111e8\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Single Post readerboard -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8207522353004717\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1144967431\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>In Amazon&#8217;s 2008 letter to shareholders, <a title=\"shmula, bezos, kaizen event\" href=\"http:\/\/sec.gov\/Archives\/edgar\/data\/1018724\/000119312509081096\/dex991.htm\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"broken_link\">Jeff Bezos shares about a Kaizen event<\/a> he participated in:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At a fulfillment center recently, one of our Kaizen experts asked me, I&#8217;m in favor of a clean fulfillment center, but why are you cleaning? Why don&#8217;t you eliminate the source of dirt?\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ve spoken numerous times about Bezos on Lean Thinking, some of which are <a title=\"bezos on root cause analysis\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/jeff-bezos-5-why-exercise-root-cause-analysis-cause-and-effect-ishikawa-lean-thinking-six-sigma\/987\/\">here<\/a>, <a title=\"shmula, bezos, hiring lean thinking software engineers\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/lean-six-sigma-at-amazoncom\/478\/\">here<\/a>, <a title=\"bezos, six sigma and lean at amazon.com\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/jeff-bezos-on-lean-and-six-sigma\/431\/\">here<\/a> and <a title=\"bezos, the long tail sucks, shmula, lean thinking, six sigma\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/the-long-tail-ad-nauseum\/162\/\">here<\/a> but there are many more &#8212; just browse shmula&#8217;s <a title=\"section on lean manufacturing articles\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/about-peter-abilla\/what-is-lean\/\">Lean Manufacturing Section<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another citation from his 2008 letter to shareholders, which shows how he thinks and how every Amazonian is encouraged and taught to think regarding the customer experience, innovation, and waste:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The customer-experience path we&#8217;ve chosen requires us to have an efficient cost structure. The good news for shareowners is that we see much opportunity for improvement in that regard. Everywhere we look (and we all look), we find what experienced Japanese manufacturers would call muda\u009d or waste.\u00a0 I find this incredibly energizing. I see it as potential  years and years of variable and fixed productivity gains and more efficient, higher velocity, more flexible capital expenditures.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What other CEO talks like this?\u00a0 As a shareholder, I&#8217;m more confident that my shareholder value will increase with Bezos at the helm.\u00a0 An example of Lean Thinking indeed.<\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Amazon&#8217;s 2008 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos shares about a Kaizen event he participated in: At a fulfillment center recently, one of our Kaizen experts asked me, I&#8217;m in favor of a clean fulfillment center, but why are you cleaning? Why don&#8217;t you eliminate the source of dirt?\u009d I&#8217;ve spoken numerous times about Bezos [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":9621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jeff Bezos, Kaizen, The Source of Dirt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jeff Bezos shares his experience at a recent Kaizen Event -- Lean Thinking, Six 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