Lean Insight and Product Reviews
Kaizen events, sometimes referred to as “Rapid Improvement Events” or “Kaizen Blitzes,” take place over a short period of time, usually a week or less. A Kaizen event is an action where the end result is to improve an existing process. A Kaizen event is a short-term effort to implement small, company wide improvements. A…
Gemba and kaizen go together like peanut butter and jelly. In Japanese, Gemba means “the actual place”. In kaizen, the phrase “Go to Gemba First” is often used. It means that you must go to where the action is or where the process is completed. It is the workbench, the sales meeting, production line, or…
Why do companies not use Kaizen events to improve? A recent LinkedIn discussion asked users why they thought many companies bypassed the use of Kaizen events to solve their problems. Apparently, the technique is a dying breed, or at least there are those who feel it is far from prominent enough. First of all, it’s…
Lean Is All About Learning – But You Still Don’t Need To Make These Mistakes So you’ve heard about this whole Lean manufacturing thing, you may have even been using it already, maybe even for months or years on end… but what happens if you’re not seeing the results you wanted or expected? What do…
The idea of 5S attracts a lot of “window shoppers,” who at first glance, become excited with the idea that they can transform their organization into a clean, organized, well working machine. However, turning their excitement into execution, is often times a challenge they are not prepared for. For many organizations, the challenge or lack…
Toyota defines Heijunka as the overall leveling, in the production schedule , of the volume and variety of items produced in given time periods and adds that it is a pre-requisite for just-in-time delivery. The basic Japanese translation of Heijunka, is “levelization.” Why Heijunka? Production leveling, as it is also referred to is essential to…
A major focus within the Theory of Constraints is on increasing sales, rather than cutting costs. To keep the focus on sales, implementers of the process use an accounting method known as Throughput Accounting. The following is the third entry in a series of posts that explore the Theory of Constraints and it’s methodology. Part…
The following is the second entry into a series of ongoing posts that explores the Theory of Constraints and it’s methodology. Part one in the Theory of Constraints series gave a broad overview of the process, defined constraints, and offered a simple breakdown of the Five Focusing Steps. Part two will now expand on the…
The Theory of Constraints is a popular methodology for organizational change and improvement that was first conceptualized by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt and introduced through his bestselling novel, The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. The Theory of Constraints popularity grew quickly and is now a very popular methodology among many organizations. It’s growth and popularity has driven…
In this day and age, it seems like everybody has a problem designed for continuous improvement. Most companies look to pick one approach while others create programs that use their best ideas and the best of various other programs. Regardless of what kind of program you want to use, there always seems to be another…