More than a few organizations I know are starting to understand the importance of establishing a culture of problem solving. Hopefully they are shifting from a tools implementation model to one which emphasizes how people respond to the daily friction generators.
In an email on the topic to a friend today, I cited four things that [...]
A couple of interesting comments to the last post (as well as the original question) got me thinking some more. I’d like to go back to basics.
There are no specific practices and behaviors that are “lean principles.”
I believe the principles operate at a higher level. The principles have to do with creating a culture in [...]
In a “management by metrics” world, problems are detected when performance indicators are off track. Perhaps inventory is too high, first pass quality is a problem. Maybe operational availability is tanking.
Once the problems are abstracted into numbers, the numbers become the problem. The solution, then, is usually a directive to reverse the trend, to improve [...]
Get to the root cause by “Asking Why?” five times.
We have all heard it, read it. Our sensei’s have pounded it into us. It is a cliché, obviously, since getting to the root cause of a problem is (most of the time) a touch more complicated than just repeatedly asking “Why?”
Isn’t it?
Maybe not. Maybe [...]
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
As I promised, I am going to continue to over-play the afternoon my team spent with Steven Spear.
In his forthcoming book “
Chasing the Rabbit” (to be published in the fall), he profiles what is different about those companies which seem to easily be increasing their lead against competitors when there is no apparent external advantage.
One [...]
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Corrie van den Hoek, a regular reader and correspondent from The Netherlands, is working on applying kaizen in the health care industry. She left a comment on ‘The White Board’ asking my thoughts on the concepts of mura and muri in the health care field.
I think it is first important to define the terms because [...]
One question I see coming up a lot in various
forums is how to deal with issues unique to very long takt times. By “very long” I usually hear about many hours, sometimes days, occasionally weeks. Because it comes up fairly often, I thought I would take a shot at addressing it here.
I think the [...]
Saturday, November 24, 2007
For kanban to work well, there has to be a solid foundation under it. That foundation is production leveling or heijunka.
Before I get to far into this, though, I would like to point something out: At the mention of leveling, people who are only just learning about kanban will point out all of the good [...]
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The short story of assembly problems is lack of parts. Part shortages drive all kinds of waste, including: juggling the schedule; expediting; bigger lots or batches - and all of these things end up causing shortages later on in a self-reinforcing death spiral.
So how did an assembly shop which built about 10 units / day, [...]
Those of you who are familiar with Shingijutsu’s materials and teaching (or at least familiar with Nakao-san’s version of things) have heard of “The Seven Flows.” As a brief overview for everyone else, the original version, and my interpretations are:
The flow of people.
The flow of information.
The flow of raw materials (incoming materials).
The flow of sub-assemblies [...]