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 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 Read more…
Low hanging fruit describes the “big bang for the buck” projects that can jump start a Lean implementation. They are the problems and opportunities that are easy to address with relatively little effort. The low hanging fruit are not likely to be the biggest payoff projects, but they are the Read more…
In the most common definition, lead time is the time that elapses from when a customer places an order until the order is received. A variation on the definition of lead time looks at the time from when raw material arrives at a facility until the finished product ships. This Read more…