Lean Insight and Product Reviews
A company’s culture plays an integral role in how it implements products and services to gain and retain a stable and profitable client base. Like maintaining a machine, an organization’s internal culture should be consistently checked and refined to ensure that all employees are working towards clear and concise objectives that encourages quality control, profit, and the company vision and mission statements. A lean culture if often…
If you ever need a refresher course on investigative persistence just tell a toddler “no” when they really want something. While most adults are able to accept no for an answer, a toddler sees this as an opportunity for discussion and to find the real reason they were told no. How do they do this? Well quite simple actually, they ask why and they don’t stop asking…
Lean Concepts promotes the ideal of maximizing customer value while reducing waste. With lean thinking, an organization utilizes key processes to increase customer value while reaching for a goal of zero waste. The concept argues there are eight primary wastes throughout business, regardless of the industry. And the term waste doesn’t refer to disposables. It refers to processes that add no value to relationships with customers and clients. Overproduction…
The challenge to keep a path of continuous improvement on track is full of obstacles and interference. In the back of our mind we know what we should be doing, but there are often times when we just can’t seem to stay on track. I recently watched an online video (shown below) from the Gemba Academy titled “Ten Commandments of Continuous Improvement” and it reminded me of…
As discussed in the previous post, Hoshin planning (Hoshin Kanri) is a strategic planning process with built in review, improvement, and learning activities. The process is designed to take an organization from development to the completion of a specific objective through a collaborative effort of the entire organization. Like other Lean methods, Hoshin planning gives organizations another tool for continuous improvement and culture development. The overview of…
Strategic Planning With Hoshin Kanri Today’s business world is constantly evolving and changing. To be successful, one must work towards exceeding a customer’s expectations, rather than just meet them. To do so, you need a strategic plan of action that allows everyone in the organization to conceptualize a clear vision. A plan that is forward-thinking and allows for continuous improvement at all levels, especially the organization’s vital…
There are many different things in any facility which can cause waste. One of the biggest examples of this comes in the form of mistakes. Mistakes can happen during the production of a product, which then needs to be either fixed or disposed of. Whatever the cause, mistakes are a huge waste of time and resources. This is why the concept of poka-yoke was developed back in…
It would pretty hard pressed to find someone in the manufacturing industry that had not heard of or worked in a Lean environment. Lean methods have been on the rise for the last two decades across many industries. If you asked someone what they’ve heard or seen as a result of Lean, chances are they will tell you about increased efficiency, reduced costs, improved customer response times…
The lean manufacturing techniques which were made famous by Toyota, and used to improve the efficiency of thousands of other companies, are today being used for far more than just facility improvement. One great example of this is when Toyota in New York City decided that it wasn’t enough to simply donate money to local charities. Toyota decided that they would donate something far more valuable. Expertise…
Many facilities which want to run according to the lean standards run into a few problems during implementation. First, the person who first proposed this change is often quite excited about the opportunity, because they had just learned about the benefits of lean standards. The second problem which will have to be overcome is that most people working in the facility will be resistant to the change.…