Continuous improvement is the art of relentlessly attempting to make people, organizations, operations, and processes better. It is an all-the-time thing. It includes the reduction of costs (primarily through waste reduction), adding more value to customers, and increasing sales by offering better products and services. True continuous improvement has a Read more…
Success in continuous improvement relies on many factors—leadership, communication, and employee engagement, to name a few. None of the intangibles matter, though, if employees and leaders are not properly trained. In a nutshell, training is the act of passing usable skills from one person to another. Instructors need two basic Read more…
In Lean, Standard Work is the cornerstone of any continuous improvement effort. It locks in gains and provides a foundation for future advances. It helps companies reach their improvement targets, but also provides a stable, reasonable working environment for frontline employees. Learning how to standardize a process using this tool Read more…
Cyril Northcote Parkinson first published this idea in The Economist in 1955. In essence, the concept says that work expands to fill the time available. This is a particular problem in continuous improvement. By definition, there is always something more to do after the task that you are on. If Read more…
The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, comes from observations made by a 19th century Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto. It simply says that just a small number of causes (the critical few), determines the majority of the effects. For example, several difficult clients might take up most Read more…
Job satisfaction is a relatively simple concept. You have expectations about your work. When those expectations are met you are satisfied. When there is a gap between what you expect and the reality of your job, dissatisfaction creeps in. Job satisfaction plays a critical and often overlooked role in continuous Read more…
One of the basic tenets of continuous improvement is respect for people. A way to do this is to look for and eliminate the tasks that are dirty, dumb, or dangerous. Unfortunately, people have become used to doing tasks that have some or all of these components. Think of the Read more…
Imagine that it is a Friday afternoon. The sun is shining, and you are looking forward to all that the weekend has to offer you. You only have two days off. What are you going to do with your time? You have the option to play—maybe a round of golf Read more…
I have spent the majority of my waking hours for the last three weeks or so staring at my computer screen. My bloodshot eyes have gotten to really dislike re-doing any work I have already done once. To prevent the waste of this rework, we at Velaction use a process to Read more…
A problem is an unwelcome situation that has a potentially adverse effect. Another way of looking at this is that a problem is a gap between what you think things should be and the reality of what they are. But problems, unfortunately, can mask themselves. Some are simply not obvious. Read more…
The term “audit” generally brings up an image of an IRS accountant knocking on the door. Hopefully at your company, audits don’t bring about such negative feelings. Simply put, audits are checks on that people are supposed to be doing. In most cases, the term “audit” implies some structure to Read more…
Although this is not specifically a Lean term, “issue” is a starting point for many forms of Lean problem solving. An issue is much like a “problem”. It looks like a problem. It smells like a problem. It feels like a problem. Only, it’s not a problem. It’s an issue. Read more…