This week’s Lean Flow workshop reminded me of WHY I skipped class for most of my senior year! It’s HARD to be a student. It’s HARD to sit in one spot for 8 hours a day. It’s HARD to listen to the teacher with complete focus…….I’m so glad school is behind me, that’s for sure!For 2 days straight we met up in the Board Room with 32 eager Lean Flow students from a cross section of different companies.
Half of the student body was made up of a number of people from Darvonda who will be critical to the implementation of this new way of looking at EFFICIENCY in our company. 
Good thing we got to stop for a 10 minute break every hour because most of us are not at all good at sitting all day long. Especially since my sister Lisa was supplying us with coffee, cookies and a hearty lunch at mid day in our cafeteria! YUMMY!
We are normally out of our offices to check on plants, production, customers, vendors and the like. Sitting makes you HUNGRY!As part of our induction into the world of Lean Flow manufacturing, we were set up into 2 teams, TEAM RED and TEAM BLUE.
Each team had to learn how to manufacture toy canons as quickly and accurately as possible. On the morning of the first day we were not able to go terribly fast and we were most definitely not that able to be very accurate. 
By the end of the second day we had improved our production speed by almost double. All we had to do was implement a few simple Lean Flow techniques on our assembly lines like “In Process Kanban’s” and such. 
I wouldn’t have believed it possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes! 
Can you imagine that, if we implement these techniques properly, we could possibly avoid doing ANY overtime hours at Darvonda this Christmas?! It just seems too good to be true. So, don’t forget to stay tuned……I’ll keep you updated on how well our Lean Flow implementation is going.Now, I’d better get going because my “In Process Kanban” is telling me I’ve got some work to finish…….
I just LOVE her blog and read it almost every day. 
When I’m sitting up in my office, looking like I’m in deep thought in front of my computer, I’m probably just reading my favorite blog. With my brow furrowed, I give the appearance of working on some extremely complicated Excel spreadsheet when in actual fact I am just checking out what Ree and her kids are up to today. She’s a farmer like me. I love the way she describes farm life. She makes farming look kinda glamorous.
and grand daughter........ 
arrived promptly at 2pm. I popped some popcorn, brewed a pot of coffee and sat down to wait for Ree to show us how to make some “man pleasing” food. 
She promised that if I made her chocolate cake recipe, I would get marriage proposals from my husband on a daily basis. I figured that meant I should really pay attention since he has only proposed to me once so far. 
while we waited for her segment to start.
I think I’m gonna run down to the book store and buy her cook book later today! 
I think I’ll buy one for each of my sister’s too because they actually OWN a real MIXER and know how to use a cook book.
If he finds out I was partying instead of FOLDING, I may have some ‘splainin to do!
been pushed out of the nest…….
ELVIS has left the building! 
It’s quite a METAMORPHOSIS for this Mother, and I’m having a hard time adjusting. Knowing that your first born is no longer counting on you for his every need is a paradigm shift we all make eventually. Some of us do it gracefully…….and then there’s ME.
Well, not DIRECTLY across the street but I can ALMOST see his driveway from the edge of my driveway. There are a couple of big trees in the way that block my view that I may eventually have to ask the Big Guy to take down. 
But, it’s only a short walk to Junior’s place and I find every excuse in the book to stop by for a visit.
Of course, my response was “I’ll meet you at the PAINT STORE!”.
and I enthusiastically jumped in with both feet. 
Dark blue for the lower portion of the wall and a dark green stripe above it. Well…….it’s not MY house so why not go for it?!
The tape did not stick as well as we had hoped and some bleeding occurred, regardless of our best efforts to avoid it. 
STRIPES are difficult. Does anyone out there feel my pain? 
His friends that come to visit are more interested in the flat screen TV than in the less than perfect paint job, right fella’s?!
Imagine my surprise when I checked out the Pioneer Woman’s blog the other day to find a photo of this SAME coffee table on her blog. Now how COOL is that? 
Here are her daughters standing in the lobby of their hotel………right beside OUR coffee table! Do I know a nice coffee table when I see one OR WHAT?
I checked up on him the other day to see if he was keeping things clean and I found that he was busy in the kitchen…….
making pizza dough from scratch……
and feeding his brother and cousin some home made soup for lunch in his “MAN ROOM”. 
OK…….it was Junior’s ROOMATE that was making the pizza and feeding the boys but…….a mother can always DREAM!
I guess he wanted to live close to work so he would have a short commute. I am definitely reaping the benefits though. Believe it or not,he even brought me fresh baked PECAN PIE for Sunday dinner dessert! Am I one lucky MOM or what?!
This week I've been very busy trying to finalize all the little details that need to be worked out for Spring 2010 which means a LOT of time spent at the computer. 
Fortunately my office has just been revamped so it's a comfy place to work. 
Even the Big Guy got excited about the whole office re-do and splurged on a bunch of TROPICAL plants from IKEA. He actually drove to IKEA one night this week while I was out and bought all this fantastic greenery to dress up the room ......now I just have to make sure I don't kill them.
I do NOT have a GREEN THUMB with house plants. Shame on me! 
See how stuffed full it is with papers?! 
That is my entire plan for next Spring. 
I'd love to show you all the AMAZING things we are doing for next year but, alas, it is TOP SECRET.........this is as close as it gets to revealing my designs for 2010.
timing breakdown, color breakdown, quantity breakdown 
and a whole bunch of other things with my Microsoft Excel! Seriously, I am HOOKED on SPREADSHEETS!
Posts
