To some, Toyota might seem surprisingly open with its Lean TPS information. After all, Lean TPS is the primary reason for Toyota’s success and recent dominance in the auto industry. Why wouldn’t they guard their secrets? Even more, why would the give access to their facilities to both Lean practitioners Read more…
Lean Problem: Your eyes glaze over when leaders start throwing around new terms and Japanese words. Thriving In a Continuous Improvement Culture Strategies: Communicating more effectively How this affects you as a Lean employee: If you don’t speak the same Lean language that your boss does, you might Read more…
Many Lean terms can trace their origins to Japan. Muda is one of those terms. It really translates to “wasteful activity”, but in common practice most people equate muda to waste. Since one of Lean’s main goals is reducing waste to improve flow, it is no surprise that muda has Read more…
Let’s talk a little about the waste of overprocessing. Anyone who has been around Lean for more than a day or so has dived into the seven wastes (eight with unused creativity thrown in). One of the wastes is the waste of overprocessing. The most common explanation given about overprocessing Read more…
Like the three rules of real estate—Location, Location, Location—continuous improvement has its own repetitive rules as well. Plus, there’s even a fourth one for good measure. By the way—muda is the Japanese word for wasteful activity, but in practice is used synonymously with waste. These rules are pretty simple. Muda. Muda. Muda. Read more…
The most common definition of jidoka is “autonomation”. It is Japanese in origin, as are many specialized words in Lean. The term traces its roots back to the early 1900’s at Toyota in Japan, then a textile manufacturing company. Sakichi Toyoda, an inventor and the founder of Toyota, developed a Read more…
Heijunka is the Japanese term for level-loading or production leveling. It is intended to smooth out the peaks and valleys of customer demand into something flatter to create conditions that make standardization easier. It also stabilizes the product mix to support Standard Work. Heijunka, pronounced High-June-Kuh, is a workaround for Read more…
A cause and effect diagram is a structured, graphical representation of the possible causes to a given effect. The purpose of the CE diagram is to provide clarity about the nature of problems. Complicated problems tend to have many contributing factors. The relationships of these potential causes jump out when Read more…
In general, batch manufacturing (the opposite of a cellular manufacturing system) is oriented around a process. You might have a cutting group, a welding group, a grinding group, etc. Each workgroup is structured based on what they do. These clusters of machines produce long runs of a product according to Read more…
DMAIC is an acronym for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control. It provides a systematic way to approach a problem. Using the DMAIC methodology to structure a problem-solving effort helps prevent skipping steps, which can lead to poor solutions. While is seems foreign at first, when you look more closely at Read more…
A kanban card is small card containing information about a specific part used in production. It is a signal that tells someone upstream to move, purchase, or build more of a component for production. These cards must contain the number of units (items, pounds, kits, etc.) that need action. They Read more…
An andon light is one of the most common forms of visual management that is used in Lean. It is a staple in the bag of Lean tools because it is highly effective at keeping operations running smoothly. In Lean, the term “andon” most often refers to a signaling system Read more…