One of the factors common to organizations that maintain a continuous improvement culture is leadership alignment on an overall direction for improvement – a “True North” – that defines the perfection you are striving for. Steve Spear describes Toyota’s “Ideal” as: An activity or a system of activities is IDEAL if it always produces and [...]
We had five sequential operations. Although the lowest repeatable times for each were well within the planned / target cycle time, there was a lot of variation. Though Operation 3 was working pretty continuously, Operations 4 and 5 (downstream) were getting starved on occasion, and the empty “bubble” was working its way to the output. [...]
While we lean practitioners seem to have earned a reputation of distain for high-speed automation, industries like mass production consumables, and the food and beverage industry, would not be viable without that approach. These plants are capital intensive, and the main focus of the people is to keep the equipment running. I hinted at some [...]
(Apologies for this post being “Password Protected” – I posted it from my smart phone, and obviously need to mistake-proof something in the interface.) – MR A key element of TWI Job Instruction is breaking down the job into important steps, key points, and reasons why. An important step advances the work. A key point is a [...]
The team was driving toward a consistently executed changeover process as a target condition. In the last iteration, the process was disrupted by a scrapped first-run part. The initial level cause was an oversize bit in the NC router resulting in an out-of-spec trim and oversize holes. This occurred in spite of the fact that [...]
I was driving home today and saw a construction sign on the sidewalk. It read: “Sidewalk Closed, Use Other Side.” Ahead was a section of the sidewalk which was, indeed, closed off and impassible. By the time a pedestrian encounters this sign, he is well into the middle of a long block. The sign is [...]
I am finding good resonance with my management training sessions. Rather than doing an overview of the “tools of lean” I go in depth into the fundamental things that the leaders need to Learn to do, and do. Ensure are done. in order to build this on a solid foundation. But “resonance” seems to mean [...]
On Monday MIT hosted a webinar with Steven Spear on the topic of “Creative Experimentation.” A key theme woven throughout Spear’s work is the world today is orders of magnitude more complex than it was even 10 or 15 years ago. Where, in the past, it was feasible for a single person or small group [...]
As we approach the end of the calendar year, many companies are starting to work on their Annual Operating Plans Wishes for next year. Why do I say wish? Because all too often these plans dictate what they wish would happen. Throughout the year, performance is “measured” against the plan. Positive variances are rewarded. Negative [...]
Today’s Dilbert strip highlights a situation that is only funny because it happens so often: The idea that a company can focus on 25 key areas, or 125 key performance indicators (yes, I said 125 because I have seen it myself) is obviously ludicrous. Of course a manager has a legitimate concern to ensure people [...]
