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The simple definition of a skill is the ability to do something well or having a particular expertise in an activity. In typical organizations, the set of skills required by individuals tends to be fairly narrow for frontline employees and leaders. For the most part, they are asked to do Read more…
Regulations are rules that are established by an authority. While the term is somewhat generic and can be used by any person or group in charge, this discussion will be limited to governmental agencies. In practice, most companies do not call their directives “regulations”. There are more likely to call Read more…
Training does not happen by accident. Building an effective team requires planning. This training plan should, at the minimum, consider the following: The overall needs of the organization An assessment of the current skills of the team Training capabilities Training goals This training plan does a few main things. It Read more…
Trust is an important part of continuous improvement. Team members have to believe their bosses. They have to be sure that making gains won’t cost them their jobs and that making mistakes on projects won’t get them in trouble. Lean requires a great deal of autonomy from frontline employees. Lean Read more…
The “How You Think Links” model depicts an overview of the process that a person typically follows to progress from an event occurring, to taking action, and ultimately, to getting a result. The basic steps are: Event Interpretation Emotion Decision Action Result Most people think an emotional reaction to an Read more…
Tooling is a generic term for any of the variety of equipment associated with production machines, especially ones that do fabrication. Cutting tools, dies, precision clamps, injection molds, jigs, and fixtures all fall into this category. Most companies with more than just a few production machines will have a tooling Read more…
“Shop floor” is a generic term used to describe the work areas where production is done. The terminology is important because there has been a migration of Lean from the shop floor to office, healthcare, and other service environments. Because there are differences in the way some tools are applied Read more…
In its purest form, the definition of a team is “a group of people associated with each other for some form of joint action or activity.” The word choice for this definition is very deliberate. Some definitions add in verbiage that implies effectiveness. Examples include “common goal”, “working together”, “organized”, Read more…
Volunteering plays a big role in continuous improvement. In many organizations, training is provided, but may not be mandatory. Prospective students may have to sign up for a “Corporate University” rather than be directed to attend by their supervisor. Projects are also often filled first with willing participants. Efforts to Read more…
Supervision is the act of providing oversight to people or processes. The amount of direct supervision required is generally inversely proportionate to the structure of the operation. What that means is simply this: if you have strong processes, people have less of a need for supervisors telling them what to Read more…
Time management is the act of consciously planning out how one spends the hours and minutes of a day. For structured, repetitive production work, most people tend to be fairly good at managing their time. When the demand is not so consistent, though, people tend to squander a lot more Read more…
Vilfredo Pareto (July 15, 1848 – August 19, 1923) was an Italian thinker who practiced many disciplines. He was an engineer and philosopher, but he is most well-known for his work in economics. It was his work in that field that led to the development of one of the most Read more…