I was freshening up my draft of the brand entry for The Continuous Improvement Companion (click this link to go to its online Lean Dictionary), and thought it would make a good, quick post for the Gotta Go Lean blog. What came to mind? The fact that most people don’t immediately associate Lean with marketing. Lean, in truth, can have a tremendous impact on your brand. A huge part of the strength of a brand is the perception that Read more…
The concept of amortization is that the initial payment for an intangible asset does not always correspond to the useful life of that asset. For example, let’s assume that your company bought the rights to a brand, such as “Twinkies”. That would be a sizeable expense that has to be paid right away, but the benefit would be spread out over a long period of time as the snack cakes are produced and sold. If Read more…
Metrics are the measurements that companies use to help a team meet its goals. Metrics are formal. They should be clearly defined and tracked regularly. More importantly, metrics should be acted upon. Tracking information without doing anything with it is demoralizing to teams and consumes resources that would be better used elsewhere. Operational metrics work best when posted prominently for the team to see. They should have a clear indicator of what the goal is Read more…
Machine cycle time is the time a machine actually requires to produce one unit of output. Machine cycle time has three basic components. It has the time to load the machine, the actual machining or machine time, and the unloading time. Machine cycle time seems like a simple concept, but in actual application, there are several potentially confusing factors. In a manual machine, the operator’s cycle time and the machine’s cycle time overlap. But when Read more…
Line balancing is the act of balancing the cycle times of the workers on a production line to the takt time. When everyone has a cycle time that matches the takt time, work flows efficiently. If a line is not balanced, it either has waiting waste where team members are standing around at the end of each cycle, or the line can’t keep up with demand. The total cycle time to produce a product divided Read more…
Cycle time reduction is the strategy of lowering the time it takes to perform a process in order to improve productivity. In addition, cycle time reduction often improves quality. When a cycle time is too close to the takt time, there is little margin for error. If a process is dialed in with very little variation, this is seldom a problem. But most processes have some inconsistency in them, resulting in people falling behind the Read more…
Batch manufacturing is the traditional form of manufacturing where production is completed in lots of various size, and the lots are passed along en masse to the next step. Typically, layouts in batch manufacturing are done by function—a weld shop, a paint shop, a fabrication shop, etc. Another name for batch manufacturing is “batch and queue”. It gets this name for obvious reasons. Products are produced, and then are shipped to the next process, where Read more…
Skew, in layman’s terms, means that data is distorted. The data points don’t fall evenly around the center of a distribution. Consider this example. Assume ten people are in a room, and you want to know what their average household income is. If this was a typical cross section of America, the number would be $73,298, as of 2014 US Census data. Now imagine Microsoft’s Bill Gates was one of those people. He would skew Read more…
Seasonality is the regular pattern of peaks and valleys related to the time of year. Seasonality may be due to weather. Umbrellas, for example, sell best in rainy seasons; skis sell best in the winter. Seasonality may also be due to recurring annual events and holidays. Christmas means toy sales spike; August means back-to-school sales. Seasonality challenges Lean manufacturers because the demand variation can be dramatic. Sales may increase three, four, or even tenfold when Read more…
Layoffs, also called downsizing, are terminations of employees because of a lack of work. Layoffs pose a significant risk to Lean and other continuous improvement efforts. If employees get the idea that helping make improvements will cost them their jobs, then they will not want to make things better. Lean requires an agreement, formal or informal, that improvements will not result in people losing their jobs. This can be especially hard to do in poor Read more…
Initiative is taking action on one’s own. It generally involves going above and beyond a typical job description or working outside of one’s functional area. Many bosses want employees to take more initiative, especially in Lean companies, but fail to establish some of the basic prerequisites. Trust: Employees have to feel that failure is forgivable Empowerment: Employees have to feel that they are allowed to take action without guidance Motivation: Employees must feel like there Read more…
Delegation is the act of appointing another person or group, usually a subordinate, to perform a specific task or role. For delegation to be successful, it should include the transfer of power along with the assignment—the authority of the subordinate to act on the boss’s behalf. Lean starts a mass delegation of authority. Roles that were traditionally limited to managers and other professionals migrate toward the front line. Commonly Delegated Authority for Frontline Employees They Read more…