Yesterday’s post on vendor managed inventory touched on a couple of things about “lean” and reducing inventory that I’d like to explore further.
All too often “inventory reduction” has been a way to “sell” a lean manufacturing implementation. The reduction of inventory becomes the objective. While this isn’t inherently a bad thing, it is all to [...]
Almost every shop I have visited has, or is thinking about, initiating a “vendor managed inventory” program of some kind.
The pressure to do this is especially strong when there is a big push to improve working capital positions and increase inventory turns. And, to be honest, the way traditional accounting counts inventory turns, getting the [...]
This post on Kevin Meyer’s Evolving Excellence blog brings up some good challenges to the traditional “avoid fixed costs” rationale for outsourcing. The post (and the comments) point out Wall Street’s obsession with achieving a total variable cost model.
There is certainly a lot of appeal. Traditional cost accounting works hard to “assign” fixed costs to [...]
AP IMPACT: Chinese drywall poses potential risks
Although I hate to judge before all the facts are in, it’s beginning to
look like a huge set of customers got burned (once again) by quality problems from China.
Before I go any further, I have to say that I have spent loads of time in China. I have very [...]
David Henry in the UK presented an interesting question on
The Whiteboard. He said:
During this economic downturn, is the long term philosophy of lean put at risk by the short term focus on cost reduction? Is that necessarily a bad thing? Does this urgency give opportunity for greater engagement with line management and provide the [...]
Watch out for drug names that look, sound alike – Yahoo! News
One of the most common errors made in the health care industry is medication – giving the wrong stuff to the patient. There are a lot of root causes, and this article highlights one of them.
I certainly understand that the commercial pharmaceutical industry [...]
Steve Fonseca asks an interesting question on
The Whiteboard.
Are lean companies really transparent with their customers and suppliers as to cost/profits. Is this a lean principle or not, or to what extent?
I am going to offer an opinion, then perhaps other readers can chip in.
First, there is no real definition of what is, or is [...]
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. [...]
On the surface, a “two bin system” seems a great, simple solution to a part resupply process that could otherwise get complex.
And, on the surface, I don’t argue with that.
But two-bin has some limitations. And because it is so simple to set up, those limitations are frequently not understood or taken into account.
What is “Two [...]
The third element of this organization’s successful drive to eliminate part shortages was a systematic approach to problem solving. They made it a process, managed just like any other process, rather than something people did when they had time. Even though this is “Part 3″ of this series, in reality they put this into [...]