Go inside the Rolls-Royce factory in West Sussex, England, and discover how the Wraith, Phantom and Ghost Series II are built.

Exploring The True Luxury of Rolls-Royce

Understand this: you don’t just buy a Rolls-Royce. You commission the production. For more than a century, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has been creating luxury in motor cars, at the highest level. The turn of the 20th century marked the beginning of an extraordinary partnership between two of the most innovative minds of the moment. Henry Royce, a successful engineer and Charles Rolls, owner of one of the UK’s first motor car dealerships, agreed to sell motor cars under the name Rolls-Royce. At that moment, a new company was born: Rolls-Royce. When Henry Royce was designing the first Rolls-Royce, a friend advised him to “turn out a reliable car at a low price.” But Royce had other ideas. He sought to turn out “the best motor car in the world regardless of cost.” More than 100 years later, that same desire for perfection is the driving force behind Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. Since 1904, we’ve created instantly recognizable motor cars that have made the marque an icon all over the world.

Touring The Factory

Step into the pure luxury of a Rolls-Royce automobile and take this amazing factory tour.

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As we get through the end of a contentious Presidential campaign, we will be trying to get back to a normal life without divisive politics. As we wind down though, let’s not forget that Friday represents an important day for Americans. We have the honor and opportunity this Friday to celebrate our veterans on Veterans Day. For most of us, Veterans Day just means a chance to enjoy an extra day off from school or work. However this November 11th, we need to be sure to spend a few minutes on its true purpose, by acknowledging the men and women who have served in our armed forces. These include the members of the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and the Coast Guard.

Be Grateful They Served

The history of this country has always been supported by a strong and ever-present military. To ensure that this nation remains strong, we require a strong military that consists of young men and women from across the social spectrum of the country. To constitute and maintain this strong military presence, we require those men and women to set aside their lives for a service obligation. Their terms of service range from short periods to life-long careers of service. Their service takes them to locations across the United States and around the globe. These courageous volunteers put themselves through an arduous and stressful service situation that requires a great sacrifice. Some give the ultimate sacrifice for their nation.

Honor Their Service

So, celebrate Veterans Day this Friday. Enjoy the time you get to spend with friends and family. Take in the beauty this country offers its citizens. Take advantage of the rights bestowed upon you as a citizen. Just take a few minutes and say thank you to a veteran. They have served and sacrificed so you may enjoy the lifestyle you follow in this country. We are blessed to be surrounded by those who sacrifice in such a selfless manner for the good of our nations. It just takes a simple Thank You!

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Oooo-hah! Let’s see how the US Army makes an American soldier! Here’s a video about the US Army’s Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson (South Carolina) and numerous other locations across the country.

Learn More About Army Basic Training

United States Army Basic Combat Training or BCT (also known as Initial Entry Training or IET, informally known as Boot Camp) is the program of physical and mental training required in order for an individual to become a soldier in the United States Army, United States Army Reserve, or Army National Guard. Basic Training is designed to be highly intense and challenging. The challenge comes as much from the difficulty of physical training as it does from the psychological adjustment to an unfamiliar way of life.

Join us for an inspiring and enlightening view of how we make soldiers in the United States. These soldiers are the finest Americans that are transformed into the best trained and equipped fighting forces in the world.

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Do you know the evolution of Six Sigma? From the introduction of the uniformity system by Eli Whitney in 1798, the early predecessor of the modern assembly line, to Henry Ford and his automobile assembly line to William Smith in 1986 creating the term “Six Sigma” and becoming the father of Six Sigma, the practice has a rich history. Download this Evolution of Six Sigma infographic and learn more about our practice.

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In this video, we get to see the magic of how Hershey’s Chocolate is manufactured and shows an inside tour of Hershey’s Chocolate Factory.

Making a Chocolate Lover’s Dream

After completing an apprenticeship to a confectioner in 1873, Milton S. Hershey founded a candy shop in Philadelphia. This candy shop was only open for six years, after which Hershey apprenticed with another confectioner in Denver, where he learned to make caramel. After another failed business attempt in New York, Hershey returned to Pennsylvania, where in 1886 he founded the Lancaster Caramel Company. The use of fresh milk in caramels proved successful, and in 1900, after seeing chocolate-making machines for the first time at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Hershey sold his caramel company for $1,000,000 (equal to $28,492,000 today), and began to concentrate on chocolate manufacturing, stating to people who questioned him, “Caramels are just a fad, but chocolate is a permanent thing.”

We know Milton was right! Chocolate is a permanent thing and his chocolate candy has permeated every part of American society. On a global scale, the brand is equally recognized as a part of Americana.

Enjoy the chocolatey delight of this factory tour.

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The following guest article was written by Jordan Rosenfeld, contributor for Lean Startup Co.

The exponential speed of technological change has been a boon for nonprofits. Thanks to the digital tools at our fingertips, organizations in the social sector can immediately test the impact of their work, says Michel Gelobter, author of Lean Startups for Social Change. This enables them to get information about and appeal to their target audiences more effectively. The key has been introducing nonprofits to the Lean Startup methodology, which Gelobter says was his impetus for writing his book. “No one in the social sector knew anything about how Lean Startup was driving the explosive growth we saw in tech companies, and explosive innovation we saw in bigger companies like GE or Intuit,” he says in a in an interview after his talk at Lean Startup Week.

Testing the “Products” Nonprofits Offer & Measuring Their Impact

Gelobter says it may not seem intuitive to apply Lean Startup to nonprofits since “you get no price signal in the social sector,” but he points out that the strategies are actually really valuable when you get into the innovation mindset. For example, he suggests thinking about target outcomes (such as limiting the spread of HIV by providing clean needles to an infected population, or reducing a carbon footprint) as “products,” which you can then create MVPs for and experiment with from there.

As an example, Gelobter was asked to design a mechanism for the community to express concern to police about gun violence in Chicago. “You really have to build a tool or product that drives more of that dialogue,” he says. Gelobter went in asking, “Will they be able to create a product that can test whether the groups will work together?” In this case, the “product” was a meeting between the community and the police; community leaders modeled six different ways of working together, from the practical to the creative, each one a different way to make strides toward the goal. Gelobter says it was incredibly effective at building communication.

Another aspect of Lean Startup that translates from the private to the social sector is the emphasis on listening to the customer—and making that a priority as you build as test your “products.” “Good social change practice involves listening,” says Gelobter, adding that mastering empathy for your target demographic is a valuable skill across sectors, whether you’re promoting sponsorships or solving lethal issues. “Sales is a lot easier when you’ve spent 20 years listening to communities about some of their most important life and death problems,” he says.

Learning from Failures is Crucial—Even in Matters of Life and Death

Nonprofits have a slight advantage over the for-profit sector because they “focus on driving a solution that people need,” says Gelobter, whereas in the commercial world it’s easy to “have a cool idea that nobody really wants.” Of course, in the social sector the customer is often not the one paying for the service, but benefiting from it. Yet he makes clear, “You still have to deliver value to people, even if they’re not paying for it.”

Lean Startup principles can go a long way toward helping nonprofits understand the role of experimentation—and to learn from failures as quickly as possible when the margin for error is small. In many cases, big issues—ranging from human lives to education and climate change—are at stake. This is where Gelobter stresses the importance of innovation accounting. “Raising up explicitly the metrics of what community and social change people do, and optimizing those metrics in the way that innovation accounting can, has the most potential for really transformative work,” he says.

Ultimately, the biggest challenge for any nonprofit, he suggests, is to be bold in how they validate their hypothesis. “[You have to] think innovatively about how to come as close to a real test of behavioral change or an adopted decision as you can,” he says. He refers to Lean Startup as “the science of demand” and adds that since “we’re getting very good at understanding what people need due to technology,” there is every opportunity for nonprofits to be as successful as organizations in the for-profit sector.

You can watch Michel Gelobter’s full talk at LeanStartup Week 2016 here, or click the video image below.

Learn more about Lean Startup at http://leanstartup.co.

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“Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude.”

-E.P. Powell

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Are you ready for a million-square-feet of manufacturing muscle? From state-of-the-art equipment to robotic machining cells, Haas does it their way and is one of the most cutting edge machine tool manufacturers in the world.

Manufacturing the Haas Way

Founded in 1983, Haas Automation has become the largest machine tool builder in the western world, manufacturing a complete line of CNC vertical machining centers, horizontal machining centers, CNC lathes and rotary products. The company also builds a variety of specialty machines, including 5-axis machining centers, mold making machining centers, toolroom machines, and gantry routers. Haas machine tools and rotary products are built to the exacting specifications of Gene Haas to deliver higher accuracy, repeatability, and durability than any other machine tools on the market.

Learn more about the quality and precision magic of Haas through this energizing video.

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The healthcare industry has always struggled with change. Some have embraced quality improvement initiatives and philosophies with significant results. Many others still are missing the mark. They are implementing ‘change management’ processes without embracing the true process. As a result, we are still experiencing healthcare quality and service that is far below what is expected in such a high risk industry.

Healthcare Leaders Must Embrace Change

One of the elements of great leadership is they have the ability to listen to and experience what goes on in the trenches, at the lowest levels of the organization. Healthcare leadership has a tendency to ignore their front line when exploring problems and listen to those workers who experience every aspect of their organization. These same leaders group around those connected to the C-suite and believe because of their education and experience, they are the only ones who possess the answers. Looking to people in an organization based upon position or education levels is still a disturbing trend in healthcare. The environment in a healthcare organization is still a class-based environment. Without extensive credibility at the end of their names on a signature block, the people with the most insight into the workings of the organization tend to be ignored. Even when the healthcare organization has embraced Lean Six Sigma practices, they restrict their focus of the programs based upon position or educational accomplishment.

Healthcare Demands a Change

The risk is too significant to ignore those who have significant amounts of institutional knowledge. The situation demands that if you really want to understand what is going on in your hospital, you need to get out from behind your desk or meeting room and start talking to those who are working the processes in the trenches. To do that, you need to be able to relate to those employees, establish trust, then be able to just listen! Only then, will you be able to find the diamonds in the rough. Otherwise, you are wasting valuable time and effort on improvement initiatives that, in the end, just won’t work.

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LEGO has created a vehicle of innovation for young Americans since its inception in 1949. Not only has this creative product ignited the imagination of many young minds, it has earned the wrath of many barefoot parents stumbling through a dark home in the middle of the night. Most people can relate to two different types of pain events: bumping your funny bone and stepping on a LEGO block.

The History of a Building Block

LEGO is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company’s flagship product, LEGO, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. LEGO pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct objects; vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects. The Lego Group began manufacturing the interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Since then, a global Lego subculture has developed. Supporting movies, games, competitions, and six Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand.

Explore the innovative world of LEGO manufacturing in this video.

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Yes, you read that right. Why is America bad for business? The fact is, America is bad for business. Not only is America bad for business, but also a small handful of states are also contributing to that label. Now that you have cursed and condemned this blog for making such an un-American and broadly inaccurate statement, let’s walk through a few thoughts about why this may be true and see if you agree.

Thoughts About Why

We have heard all about ‘Making America Great Again’ since the election and we have heard how our President-Elect will address the issues he believes will change things for business investment in America. The President-Elect has went so far as to intervene with Carrier to keep jobs in America. However, Ford has signaled that it will continue to move some production out of the country. Other businesses have also signaled they will also continue to move their production, without regard to the position on the President-Elect. Whether you agree with this intervention or analysis, here are some facts that do attribute directly to why business investment is moving:

Corporate Tax Rate – America has the dubious honor of having one the highest corporate tax rates in the world. The current rate is 35%.

Labor Cost – The cost of labor equals the cost of production and equals the final cost consumers pay. Whether you like it or not! When a country has lower labor costs, the savings can be passed on to consumers and make a company competitive.

Corporate Regulation – America has another dubious distinction of having regulation from local, state and federal governments that significantly restricts and inhibits business investment and operation. That is disturbing on many levels, especially since we are a republic that touts freedom for its citizens and respectively, their businesses.

Change the Tide of Business Investment

Whether you agree with our current political environment, these three issues are significantly affecting business investment in America. As long as we continue towards heavier regulation, higher taxes and increased labor costs, America will continue to lose business investment to countries that are focused on attracting and keeping business.

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When you’re running low,  just push a button and a new product will be delivered to your door! Sounds like something snatched right from the space age Jetsons cartoons. Can you imagine, when you start running low on a product in your home, you can simply push a button and have it delivered and paid for, without ever leaving your home? That is the vision and mission of Amazon Dash.

Stocking up with Amazon Dash

Amazon Dash is a consumer goods ordering service which uses a proprietary device for ordering goods over the internet. It consists of multiple components that uses a scanning device to inventory consumer goods around the house, integrating with AmazonFresh. The button itself is a small tray-like consumer electronic device that can be placed around the house and programmed to order a consumer good, such as disinfectant wipes or paper towels. The replenishment service allows manufacturers to add a physical button or auto-detection capability to their devices to reorder supplies from Amazon when necessary.

Amazon and Lean Six Sigma

If you look at the Amazon Dash system, it mirrors the principles and practices of Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Specifically, compare the process with a pattern production replenishment pull system, such as Kanban. Material is consumed, and a signal is sent to the production area to replace the item, with the same quality and type as the material that was consumed. Amazon has developed a process, based on Lean Six Sigma methodologies, which has tremendous opportunities for other industries and operations across many business segments. Future applications of this Amazon process will closely be evaluated by other industries. It clearly demonstrates how innovative thinking works hand in hand with Lean Six Sigma methodologies.

Watch this quick video on Amazon Dash.

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We have heard it all before. The customer is always right and what the customer says … goes! Yeah well, that is true … to a point. We will do whatever it takes to make the customer happy, but we are not going to change our core operational process because that is what made our company successful. Does this mantra sound familiar?

Changing the Customer Experience

It should sound familiar, because it is what we do. We address customer concerns and bend over backwards to make them happy, in that specific situation. Then, we go right back to doing what we did before. Core policies and processes rarely change, no matter how many customer concerns are focused on them. The view is typical, since the C-Suite understands the deepest detail of what goes on in the business, customers may be complaining, but they are really out of touch with their expectations. In the dance of customer service, we continue to waltz with our customers to make them happy, without changing what is truly making them unhappy.

The fact is, that if we want to make real, substantive change with the customer experience, we must hear the customers and be willing to make changes to our deepest core processes. Sound like a simple thing? Well, it should be, but making it happen is significantly more difficult. Businesses, no matter the size or the years established, must be willing to change things that just irk our customers. Not listening and making real changes costs businesses in many ways. It significantly frustrates and disenfranchises customers in slow moving herds. As the customers move away, businesses then start to feel the financial impact on their bottom line. Lavishing unhappy customers with deals, discounts and groveling is actually a temporary fix to a long term problem. Before you know it, the customer will be tired of your lip service and the freebies you provide just won’t retain their loyalty.

Making Lasting Change

It is time that business must embrace real change when dealing with their customer experience. That transformation must come through deep and significant change happening with core operational processes. A structured VoC (Voice of the Customer) program, managed by trained and experienced Lean Six Sigma professionals, can achieve the desired results.

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We spend our lives measuring time, and our lives are measured by time. Time is the most valuable asset we possess and once squandered, can never be regained. Luxurious time pieces reflect this obsession with time, and have been an object of our desire since their invention.

Building Swiss Watches

Audemars Piguet is a manufacturer of ultra-luxury Swiss watches founded in 1875 by watch makers Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet. Audemars Piguet is often regarded to be among the highest end of watch manufacturers, along with Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, A. Lange & Söhne, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Ulysse Nardin and Breguet.

The company designs and manufactures highly complex mechanical watches, haute joaillerie creations, and jewelry. The Audemars Piguet watch group is composed of 1,200 employees, 14 distribution subsidiaries, and 16 boutiques worldwide.

Take some of your valuable time and watch this engaging video.

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Christmas displays have been part of our holiday celebration for hundreds of years. With candles being the primary version of the early decorations, the festive lighting and creative imaginations created breathtaking spectacles. Of course, with human nature being one of competition, those early Christmas light displays became quite impressive and very dangerous! Thomas Edison transitioned us to a much safer product to illuminate the holiday. It was touted as a safer way to illuminate your Christmas display and reduce the risk of fire. Now, Edison’s creation has evolved over the decades allowing for brilliant, safe and festive lighting displays. We all know one thing for sure: the human instinct to compete hasn’t changed since Edison’s time…we all want to have bigger, better and brighter displays.

The Best Christmas Light Displays

Excessive Christmas light displays evoke memories of Clark Griswald (Chevy Chase) in Christmas Vacation, so we are taking Christmas displays to a new level. This is now becoming a global phenomena!

Check out the 6 Best Christmas Light Displays!

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Why did he feel so awake tonight? He slipped back in time, as he did so easily nowadays. He was fifteen years old and still on his father’s farm. He loved his father. He had not known it until one day a few days before Christmas, when he had overheard what his father was saying to his mother.

Read the complete story here.

Christmas Day in the Morning
~By Pearl S. Buck

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“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

– John F. Kennedy, 45th President of the U.S.

Gratitude is an emotion expressing appreciation for what one has—as opposed to, for example, a consumer-driven emphasis on what one wants. It is getting a great deal of attention as a facet of positive psychology: Studies show that we can deliberately cultivate gratitude, and can increase our well-being and happiness by doing so. In addition, gratefulness—and especially expression of it to others—is associated with increased energy, optimism, and empathy.

Making Gratitude a Daily Practice

Gratitude is crucial for successful leaders. They must understand the importance of this habit in their business operations. It is a force that transforms and focuses. Making a habit of practicing gratitude is one of the most important skills a leader can possess. Studies have shown that being grateful is a result of and promotes moral behavior. It demonstrates that a leader cares. People are more likely to feel gratitude when declarations are made in public.

Leaders find it easier to be grateful when they seek out the good in situations. Those who constantly criticize and carry on with a negative air in their environment find it difficult, if not impossible, to identify and express gratitude.

Changing the Culture

Gratitude and being grateful is a powerful tool. A leader can shape the culture and destiny of their business by simply making it a habit. There is an old adage that a great leader praises in public and corrects in private. Be genuine! Look for the good in every situation, recognize it and then praise it publicly. Learn to harness the power and you will see a powerful change!

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Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year

I was waiting to pick up a friend at the airport when I had one of those life changing experiences, the kind that you sometimes hear other people talk about, the kind that sneaks up on you unexpectedly. This one occurred a mere two feet away from me … Read more here.

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Lean thinking has quickly found its way across multitudes of businesses in recent years. It is no longer in the exclusive realm of manufacturing.

“It’s getting hard to find an industry where people aren’t using lean methodologies”
Mark Graban, Lean Consultant and Author

Over the years, we have modeled farms after our factory production. This has resulted in a shift to feedlots, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO’s) and monocultures. We have taken a sensitive industry and converted it into a business focused on volume, without consideration of customer needs or health. Can we now change that dynamic back to the ways of the original farming model, where the focus is on customer needs and health?

Applying the Practices to Lean Farming

Recently, small farmers have started to change their ways. They can no longer operate and compete with large scale farming operations, even though the demand of the consumer is changing to a more healthy approach to our food chain. Small farmers are quickly going out of business and generations of farm families are lost in rural America.

On a small farm in rural Indiana, a farmer and a lean manufacturing expert from a nearby manufacturing operation joined forces to try a different approach. They applied lean manufacturing to farming. The results have been phenomenal. Every aspect of the farm operation was scrutinized, then optimized to create a lean farming model that has produced results! They have changed the focus of the farmer from growing the same specific crops year after year, to growing what the consumer in their regional actually wanted. No longer did they have to go to great lengths to seek out buyers for their crops. With a little marketing effort and word of mouth, the consumers were drawn to this lean farming operation, because they had the produce that they wanted. It all began with understanding the needs of the customer and producing to those needs. They have reduced waste in the lean farming operation and significantly increased profits. The operation continues to grow and build their operation with a renewed customer focus.

The Future of Lean Farming

For decades, farmers have operated under basic practices. They have been told that to succeed they must ‘Get Big’ or ‘Get Out’ because of the competition from the corporate farming operations. It drove them out. Now, with a focus on lean farming, farmers have found a better way … which is sustainable and tailored to the needs of their consumers.

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When you think of luxury sport cars, the Porsche 911 immediately comes to mind. It has been established as the quintessential luxury for speed! There is nothing as inspiring or sexy than to see a Porsche 911 zipping past in a blur, with its throaty roar!

A History of the Porsche 911

By the late 1950s, it was obvious to Porsche that the 356, which had started as basically a heavily modified Volkswagen Beetle in 1948, was small and not particularly powerful in comparison to other sports cars at its lofty price level. But it was also the car upon which the company was built and was essentially Porsche’s sole product. Replacing it was necessary, yet perilous. Who knew that the eventual replacement for the 356, the 911, would surpass its predecessor in sales, longevity and glory? Or that it would be so fanatically cherished by its owners that Porsche hasn’t been allowed to replace it — despite trying a couple of times?

Almost immediately after it went on sale in September 1964 (as a 1965 model) the 911 established itself as an icon of ’60s cool. Then it segued gracefully into being an icon of ’70s performance, then an icon of sophistication and affluence in the ’80s, then an icon of athleticism and power in the ’90s. It is now simply an icon of all that’s right with Germany and automobiles.

Watch How a Porsche 911 Is Made

Buckle up … and watch how this German muscle machine is made.

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