Lean Built: Manufacturing Freedom

This week, Jay and Andrew treating vendors like partners, and why that pays off. They also dive into the evolution of their daily morning meetings, sharing how they’re constantly tweaking the format to make those few minutes more meaningful for their teams. Finally, they tackle AI in manufacturing. Where does it actually save time? Where does it make people worse at thinking? And how do you use it...

What if one of the fastest ways to improve your machine shop is walking through someone else’s? In this solo episode, Andrew shares lessons from recent shop tours, including visits to manufacturers in Japan and Toyota Material Handling in Columbus, Indiana. He explains why every shop owner and manufacturing leader should regularly visit other facilities, shamelessly borrow great ideas, and expose...

Andrew shares how a simple magnetic tag meant to prevent a security mistake failed, not because the idea was bad, but because the process wasn’t complete. From there, Andrew and Jay explore Kanban systems, physical signals, mistake-proofing, and why the best systems don’t rely on memory. Along the way, Andrew and Jay trade stories about forgotten garage doors, rusting cast iron, Toyota-inspired fi...

A single drop of coolant shut down an overnight production run that should have been making parts for hours. Nothing crashed or was broken, yet the machine stopped, production stopped, and the schedule slipped. That small failure leads to a bigger discussion about one of the hardest lessons in manufacturing and business: the more optimization you pursue, the more opportunities you create for failu...

Andrew returns from Japan with 15 lessons that challenged the way he thinks about leadership, training, standards, and continuous improvement. These include thoughts on how leaders accidentally become bottlenecks, why standards drift over time, and what it means to build a culture that surfaces problems instead of burying them.

What happens when an iconic brand starts fighting its own fans? This week, Andrew and Jay discuss Fender’s controversial cease-and-desist campaign against Strat-style guitar builders and discuss the difference between protecting intellectual property and damaging brand loyalty. What can businesses learn from the backlash? The conversation then shifts to Andrew’s recent trip to Japan, where he spen...

Jay welcomes John Grimsmo of Grimsmo Knives for a wide-ranging conversation on leadership, manufacturing culture, lean systems, and the Six Types of Working Genius assessment. Fresh off implementing the framework with his family and team, John shares how understanding “working genius” helped relieve pressure, clarify leadership frustrations, and reshape the way he thinks about people, meetings, an...

Is a good leader a dictator? In this episode, Jay and Andrew wrestle with the tension between decisive leadership and collaborative growth. What starts as a customer support question turns into a deep conversation about lean manufacturing, parenting, company culture, value stream mapping, and the hidden danger of “at some point” processes. They unpack why servant leadership is often misunderstood,...

Andrew and Jay explore the tension between confidence and delusion in entrepreneurship, the challenge of scaling a company without losing yourself, and the reality that what got you here might not get you there. They also dig into Vistage vs. hands-on consulting, the value of networking in real life, productive failure, family business dynamics, and why some people seem to operate in an entirely d...

Is anybody too big to fail? (Answer: no.) What actually keeps a business alive when everything around it starts shifting? In this ep, Andrew and Jay talk the quiet reality behind “too big to fail,” looking at why companies collapse, how bad assumptions creep in, and what it takes to stay standing when conditions change fast. From supply chain headaches and rising material costs to vendor missteps...

Jay and Andrew start by talking about getting back into work after time away, which leads into a broader discussion about applying work systems and efficiency principles in both the shop and at home. They cover a range of topics including garage organization, equipment decisions, troubleshooting production issues, trade shows, business growth, tools, taxes, and the use of AI, and more.

Fresh off the Machining Summit on the Summit in Mammoth Lakes, Andrew and Jay sit down to unpack what actually made the experience worth it...and it wasn’t just the sessions. From gondola rides to small, living-room-style conversations, they talk about how being in the right environment with the right people leads to better conversations, clearer thinking, and relationships that actually matter. A...

What happens when your factory catches fire without warning? In this episode, Brian Meyers (president of Fat American Mfg and host of Lean by Doing podcast) sits down with Jay and Andrew to share the story of a fire that broke out in his brand-new facility, and what it revealed about leadership, preparation, and the power of lean manufacturing. In short: what could have been a total loss wasn't at...

Jay begins by talking about selling a machine, and when it's better to go direct versus using a dealer, with broader implications regarding alignment, control, and the hidden costs of outsourcing parts of your business.   From there, the discussion shifts into shop operations: flow vs. batching, tool changes, and where efficiency actually comes from in real production environments. Jay and Andrew...

Jay and Andrew begin with a deceptively simple question: what actually makes a company “lean”? Starting with a quote from Shigeo Shingo, they challenge the common misconception that lean is just Kanban, and explore the deeper reality that lean is less about specific tools and more about principles, tradeoffs, and context. From there, Andrew shares a deep dive into labor tracking and ERP data, unco...

Andrew shares insights with Jay from a recent lean-focused shop tour with Paul Akers . The conversation goes to the hidden dangers of batch processing vs. one-piece flow, why takt time can matter more than cycle time, how to identify and eliminate waste at the micro-task level, and why “don’t solve problems until they exist” is often the best strategy They also explore practical challenges like li...

Why do some people naturally notice problems while others don’t? Andrew introduces ideas from the book Living Sensationally , exploring how different sensory personalities affect how workers perceive disorder and opportunities for improvement. Andrew also shares the results of his shop’s first full week of 8 a.m. morning meetings followed by shop-wide 3S, complete with funky music and a noticeable...

Andrew shares a recent experiment in his shop: installing a full Sonos sound system and changing the structure of morning meetings and 3S time to give employees more room to pursue real improvements. Meanwhile, Jay discusses several new internal tools he has built, including an AI-powered quoting system and digital production boards designed to replace traditional analog shop boards. The conversat...

A tornado tears through Bloomington, leading Andrew and Jay to discuss practical leadership during real-world emergencies. From there, the conversation shifts back to the shop floor: chip conveyors on Brother machines, production layout tradeoffs, palletized workholding vs. one-piece flow, and the realities of automation. They explore the pros and cons of high-density fixturing, robot-fed cells, a...

In this special guest episode, Andrew sits down with Russell Watkins, co-founder of Sempai . Andrew first met Russell at the Gemba Summit in Belfast, where Russell delivered a keynote titled “10 Lightbulb Moments from Working with Toyota Japan and UK.” After cornering him at lunch with a notebook full of questions, Andrew knew this had to become a podcast conversation. They explore: What Russell l...

Jay and Andrew unpack a provocative quote from Shigeo Shingo: “If you don’t know why defects are occurring, make some defects.” It sounds like lean heresy at first. But they explore why some defects are treasures and others are just carelessness. The real question: are you reacting to problems under pressure or deliberately creating space to uncover them before they cost you? Along the way, they t...

The way you treat people in business often matters more than the deal itself. Andrew and Jay talk about what happens when something breaks, an emergency hits, or you need a favor...and why companies that build goodwill get help while others get ignored. Drawing on real shop experience, customer behavior, game theory, and a Godfather analogy, they challenge the idea that business is a zero-sum game...

What does a good lean elevator pitch sound like? Why do small, well-intentioned improvements end up causing problems later (hint: it helps to document things)? And how do owners listen closely to customers without losing sight of the long-term direction they’re trying to steer the business toward? In this episode of Lean Built , Jay and Andrew talk through those questions. Along the way, they disc...

Andrew and Jay walk through a situation a lot of shop owners have faced: a brutally tight print that can be machined but can’t be verified with confidence. At least not without the right metrology, systems, and alignment with the customer. Instead of rushing a quote or ghosting the RFQ, this is the kind of situation you have to handle like an owner. In other words, slow down, ask uncomfortable que...

Jay and Andrew talk through everyday shop systems that seem simple until they aren’t: HVAC, shutdown routines, checklists, timers, and light automation. They compare notes on where “smart” solutions help and where they quietly create new problems, especially when reliability, safety, and human behavior matter more than elegance.