Sublime

seemed like Amazon was reinventing the wheel with each integration effort, and this duplication of effort was an expensive and time-consuming waste. So, CEO Jeff Bezos assigned Rick Dalzell the task of “hardening the interfaces” between systems—making sure, in other words, that all the main databases and applications had the same set of ways that t

“This is what you’re really trying to do as a railroad, run cars. You’re not trying to move trains.” A train simply being on time didn’t necessarily mean the individual cars were where they needed to be.

Wilke’s secret to success? A culture of operational excellence—built on lean manufacturing, statistical process control, the theory of constraints, and purpose-built software.‡ Lean manufacturing, of course, came from the Toyota Way, the fusion of Deming’s and Japan’s “East meets West” ideas and practices. Statistical process control, too, comes st

What we take, how and what we make, what we waste, is in fact a question of ethics. We have unlimited responsibility for the Total.

have a strong incentive to prevent all waste in operations within their ownership.