Welcome to the February 2006 edition of our monthly newsletter, Learning to Lean. In this month's edition, we focus on problem solving and the lean organization.

Announcements

The following individual public courses may be taken separately or as part of a certificate program. We have very limited space remaining.

Course (click on date to register/read more)	Date
Value Stream Mapping	Feb 23, 2006
Kaizen Events: 5S, Visual Controls, and Mistake Proofing	Mar 9, 2006
Quick Changeover and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)	Mar 23, 2006
Creating Continuous Flow Manufacturing Cells	Apr 6, 2006
Material Flow and Kanban	Apr 20, 2006
Lean Production Control and Inventory Mgmt.	May 4, 2006

Click here for details on all of our training offerings, both on-site at your facility and public.

Lean Culture and Problem Solving

We often hear that lean culture involves empowering front-line workers, but rarely is there much discussion on what this means. One of the most important yet most overlooked aspects of lean is problem solving skills. The lean culture and problem solving skills go hand-in-hand.

This month' edition features three articles that should help you understand more about problem solving and the lean culture. Firstly, we talk about the basics of problems solving. Our second article talks about lean culture. Our third article discusses Toyota's culture of learning and problem solving.

The materials referenced in this newsletter will teach you more about lean. If you would like to learn more, feel free to call us at 866-559-5598 or visit our website and click on "Contact Us."

To subscribe to this newsletter, visit http://www.emsstrategies.com/newslettersignup.htm. Please feel free to forward Learning to Lean to colleagues or use it in your publication. We only ask that you do so in its entirety.