I wonder how many big companies are having their annual sales meeting or sales planning sessions for the year? How many companies that “do lean” are talking about “wow, we barely made it last year because we sold 30% of our annual revenue in December”?? How many companies are giving bonuses to those heroes who helped “make the number” right before Christmas?
This is a challenge in many industries, including the PC industry and for Dell. It's hard to level sales or to level production with many old engrained habits.
But how many companies are talking about the impact of late year sales other than how it stresses out executives, who fear for their jobs if they miss their numbers? How many companies are having frank discussions about the cost of such sales spikes on profit due to offering discounts to get revenue, the impact on supply chain and capacity costs, etc? Is your company having that tough discussion or is doing 5S enough?
“Heijunka” — “you won't be happy with out it,” says Toyota.
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