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If you’ve been following this blog, you know that in my role as adjunct professor at Portland State University, I left the U.S. a few weeks ago, accompanying 28 students on a three-week Study Abroad program. Our itinerary included visiting both Vietnam and China to study e-commerce and meet with local logistics providers. Our plans […]

As I’ve shared before, I’m an adjunct professor at Portland State University. As part of my role, I am embarking on a three-week journey with 28 students, heading to Vietnam and China for their Study Abroad program. Those in my age group only know Vietnam from watching the news and listening to dinner conversations back […]

In my last blog, I wrote that one of my teaching tasks is mentoring small businesses in the Portland Metro area, and about my role helping local craft brewers improve their cash flows. The master brewers have pretty good control of the Supply side of the equation. Their response times are relatively quick, their product […]

One of my teaching tasks is the mentoring of small businesses here in the Portland metro area. Since I am “the Cash Man” the university has decided that I should guide local craft brewers in improving their cash flows. This is a fun assignment, but one thing I’ve now seen repeatedly is that it takes […]

Over the last six months I’ve written extensively about People and Processes, but little on tools. I believe that people are overly reliant on what they think to be the silver bullet of technology, but spend too little time on truly understanding their corporate culture and processes. This is a ready recipe for disaster. I […]

Quality is a critical component of any manufacturing or service-related business: it has become the hallmark of most companies around the world. This emphasis got its start back in the 1920s, when S. Toyoda first invented an automated loom that stopped operations whenever a thread broke. It has now become the basic cost of entry […]