On My Mind
You might be receiving a compliment if someone refers to you as The GOAT! I only recently heard that expression for the first time in reference to the New England Patriots – the winners of the 51st Super Bowl. GOAT stands for Greatest of All Time and a strong argument can be made that the New England Patriot organization is the Greatest Pro Football Franchise of All Time with five Super Bowl victories. I’ve grown to like the use of Mount Rushmore to identify the four best of something. For example, my Mount Rushmore of professional baseball players would probably include Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Nolan Ryan, and Ichiro Suzuki. I don’t think we necessarily need to strive to be The GOAT, but we can all strive to be better. Who knows, maybe someday you will appear on a Mount Rushmore.

Interesting Stories
How long is a British yard? Back in the day you could travel to a district of London called Greenwich and see for yourself. A sign located near the Public Standards of Length in the picture states: “These British Imperial Standards were first mounted outside the Observatory main gates some time before 1866, to enable the public to check measures of length. The stated length is the distance between the inner faces of the two D-shaped studs.” Nearby you can also stand on the Prime Meridian which is the official “standard dividing line” between “East” and “West” in terms of longitude. You can learn more about standards and standardization by reading the paper “Applying the Four Student Model to the SDCA Cycle.” The paper is available for free on the RESEARCH page of the www.strategicimprovementsystems.com website.

Company News
The next public Continuous Improvement Green Belt course starts March 14. A one day Customer Analysis workshop will be held April 12 and a two day Applied Multivariate Data Analysis course will be held May 8-9. You can contact me at charles@sisliedtke.com for details.

Intriguing Reads
The book “Lean Lexicon: A Graphical Glossary for Lean Thinkers” by the Lean Enterprise Institute is still my favorite introductory book on Lean. The book contains clear descriptions, diagrams, and illustrations of the major Lean concepts, tools, and techniques. It is a great resource for anyone starting to learn about Lean and for those who want a thorough refresher.