Green manufacturing might seem like a flavor of the month. Perhaps it seems to have cropped up as “An Inconvenient Truth” hit the scene.

Green manufacturing doesn’t have to involve solar power and wind turbines. It can be turning equipment to a lower setting when not in use, switching the lighting, or even changing a plant’s operating hours in order to save electricity.

Should organizations focus on continual improvement or swing for the home run? To answer, we should ask ourselves two questions. “Are we making progress?” and “Are we better than competitors to the point of having a strategic advantage?”

1903 was a big year. The Wright Brothers took to the skies, the Ford Motor Company got on the road, and a young William Boeing left Yale and headed to the West Coast.