The moonshine shop is a team in Lean manufacturing environments that specializes in pushing the envelop of what the company is doing in continuous improvement. It focuses more on experimentation and conceptual work than addressing specific problems. It is named for the similarity to old moonshiners who would set up Read more…
As part of your continuous improvement efforts, you will need to experiment, and that means making models. Models are essentially, at their heart, experiments to figure out how to do things on a larger scale. They are intended to get all the mistakes and faults in ideas out before you Read more…
Six Sigma is based on the DMAIC cycle. DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control, and is a step-by-step approach to solving large problems. Six Sigma refers to the standard deviations and is geared primarily towards reducing variation, so the output of a process fits within six standard deviations Read more…
In logistics, a milk run is where a customer has a single vehicle visit a series of suppliers to pick up materials. In traditional shipping, the reverse is true. Vendors deliver to their customers. The name comes from the dairy industry, in which a single tanker from a processing facility Read more…
Motorola is the birthplace of Six Sigma. It was conceived by Bill Smith, an engineer at the company, in 1986. Many of the concepts within Six Sigma had been around for a while, but this was the first time that they had been organized into a cohesive system for making Read more…
A Master Black Belt is an individual who has been certified to train other black belts. Black belts are the trainers and continuous improvement team coaches for a company. Having a Master Black Belt is a credential. It is not a job title. Many who attain that level do, however, Read more…
The mode is the number which appears most frequently in a set of numbers. For a finite data set, as in a sample of measurements, the mode would be the number that appears the greatest number of times. In a distribution curve, the mode is the number that corresponds to Read more…
The median is the point at which there are the same number of values above it as there are below it. This can apply to a sample, a full population, or distribution curve. When the data consists of a finite set (rather than a distribution curve), if there is an Read more…
Lean operations strive to move materials through processes in the smallest quantity possible. As a value stream approaches one piece flow, inventory tends to drop and productivity rises. Unfortunately, this streamlined flow is often interrupted by large, fixed pieces of equipment that are difficult to move or replace. This type Read more…
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), is a psychologist made famous by his “Hierarchy of Needs”. He proposes that people have a tiered structure of needs, and the most basic of these must be met prior to dedicating attention to more advanced, or higher-order needs. The hierarchy, from lowest to highest, includes: Physiological Read more…
A manager is a person in a formal position of authority, generally responsible for guiding a team or process towards an established goal. In virtually all cases, a manager is in a formal position, as opposed to a leader who may be in either a designated or an informal role. Read more…
Marketing is the combination of art and science used to determine which products or services a customer will buy, and then crafting a message to make those offerings more appealing. There is a veritable library of information available on marketing, so this term focuses on the impact continuous improvement efforts Read more…