Business Services Industry
American Airlines facility in Tulsa, Okla., aims for continuous improvement.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News, July, 2004
By Eric Torbenson, The Dallas Morning News Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Jul. 2--TULSA, Okla. -- The hunt for "muda" here is about job security.
Muda, meaning "waste," and "kaizan," for "continuous improvement," are just some of the many Japanese words rolling off the tongues of aircraft mechanics at American Airlines Inc.'s maintenance base, where planes are stripped to their aluminum frames and rebuilt every few years.
Among the projects, all part of a massive cost-cutting campaign as the world's largest carrier overhauls its operations: Taking fewer steps each day to get aircraft parts. Rethinking how to stock chemical cabinets.
Savings vary from several thousand dollars a day to several million a year.
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