The more I read about problems that companies and other organizations encounter, the more I believe that Lean is the answer. As I write this, one of the stories in the current news cycle is about how a man was able to walk into a terminal at Newark airport by Read more…
If you are in a Lean company, you probably already have a fairly well defined kaizen process. After all, an effective kaizen is one of the most powerful continuous improvement tools in your Lean kit. Like all things, though, your kaizen process probably has room for improvement. I’ve compiled a Read more…
Well, we are deep in the heart of the holiday season. Like many of you, I visited some family last week. I happened to be in Spokane, and one night we went out looking at Christmas lights. Just outside the city, there is a barn with a pretty amazing display. Read more…
As a Lean consultant, I do a lot of reading about Lean and keep my ear to the ground to try to find new tips and tricks to deliver more value to my clients and the readers of the content on my website. Because I’ve been doing this a while, Read more…
Most well-managed companies track the performance of its suppliers. Or more specifically, they track the performance of their external suppliers. Common Supplier Criteria Lead time Quality On-time delivery Responsiveness to questions and problems Orders shipped complete As you can see, there are many criteria with which to measure suppliers. Here’s Read more…
The success of a kaizen project is closely correlated to its proper, thorough planning. But there is also a need to avoid going into a kaizen project with pre-conceived notions of specific changes. Those two opposing factors can create a situation where a team starts diving into a kaizen project Read more…
To make quality better, you frequently have to go hunting for problems. One indicator of problems, though, is hard to miss. In heavy manufacturing, you can walk through a facility and hear the sounds of hammers ringing off in the distance. Let’s start off for a moment and think why Read more…
Most people around Lean have heard the term ‘visual workplace’. They know that it is the art of making problems leap out at you, and being able to have a process immediately communicate its status to an observer. One barrier to creating an effective visual workplace is the practice of Read more…
Sharing best practices turbo-charges your Lean efforts. It dramatically speeds up your progress when you don’t have to reinvent the wheel for every problem. So, since you are on a continuous improvement site reading this, I am assuming that you’d appreciate a few time-saving tips on surfing the web. Finding Read more…
Process observation is a critical task in the battle against waste. One of the mistakes people make when observing a process is to ask questions about it before they go to gemba to watch it. This tends to bias the person doing the process observation.
Over the years, I have worked with some premiere Japanese Lean consultants. Here are some of the many lessons I learned from them… Watch before asking. Observe a process before asking any questions about it. You’ll prevent biasing what you see. Listen. Listen to the noise around you-you’ll be surprised Read more…
5S is one of the building blocks of Lean, and really, any continuous improvement effort. Learning how to 5S properly can launch a company on the path to greatness. Unfortunately, many companies don’t learn how not to 5S. What you don’t do can be as important as what you do. Read more…