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Category Archives: Pacing

Accurate Forecasting

Monday, April 28, 2008

Why can’t we get a more accurate forecast from sales?
Manufacturing managers the world over have the same complaint.
Maybe the word “forecast” is tripping everyone up.
A forecast is a prediction. Maybe it is based on some kind of market analysis, maybe even asking the dealers what they think they will sell. It could be based on [...]

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The Importance of Heijunka

Monday, March 3, 2008

My friend Tom poses an interesting question to production managers:
“If I ask you to produce different quantities and types of products every day, what quantity of people, materials, machines, and space do you need?”
Of course the answer is usually, at best, inarticulate and, at worst, a blank stare. There isn’t any way to know. [...]

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Really Long Takt Times

Monday, December 3, 2007

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 [...]

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