See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
The author of this PDF document, Greg Lane, “learned this simple method while working for Toyota. There is nothing profound in these simple ideas…”
OSKKK stands for the following:
See on www.jobshoplean.org
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
An article on how Tesla is reviving the shuttered NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA, with a production line designed by Toyota Alumnus Gilbert Passin.
See on www.bloomberg.com
Dateline 3/16/2012, Marion, Ill: Aisin recognized with top achiever award. This article recounts how “Aisin Manufacturing Illinois of Marion was recently recognized for their success among all Aisin operations in North America, as the top achiever in the 1-person/1-kaizen program. The 1-person/1-kaizen program is a national program that allows Aisin team members the opportunity to submit and implement ideas for improvement in the areas of safety, quality, cost, delivery or environmental.” In other words, it is an individual suggestion system.
Dateline 3/19/2012, Anoka County, MN: County taking Lean approach to government. The approach to improve the processing of paternity cases was designed by outside consultants, Innovation Process Design, LLC. Their were implemented “using the Kaizen process.” Since recommendations from outside consultants couldn’t possibly be implemented by individual employee suggestions, “Kaizen” obviously does not have the same meaning as in the Aisin story. Drilling through from the article, you reach a government website from the EPA, which defines Kaizens as “rapid improvement processes,” organized in the form of events.
That Kaizen should mean something so radically different in the Japan and the US would not be a problem if the success of the original, Japanese Kaizen were not used to promote the made-in-the-USA Kaizen events. One particularly unfortunate consequence is the quasi-total absence of Kaizen activity in the original senses in US factories that are not Japanese transplants.
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
When demand dropped off a cliff — only to bounce back dramatically a year later — a lean overhaul helped the truck-trailer manufacturer diversify and create the flexibility it needed to survive.
See on www.industryweek.com
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
For a successful Lean implementation, the results reported in this article are about par. Without applying Lean, they would be extraordinary.
Supplier factories that adopted lean principles showed defect rates 50 per cent lower than those that didn’t. It also revealed delivery lead times from lean factories were, on average, 40 per cent quicker. Productivity increases of 10 to 20 per cent and a reduction in the time taken to introduce a new model by 30 per cent were also reported from lean factories.
See on www.supplymanagement.com
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
A case study, presented by the plant manager.
See on www.bus-ex.com
See on Scoop.it – Cellular manufacturing
When companies implement lean manufacturing correctly they achieve necessary cost improvements and increase productivity while maintaining operational control that only on-shore, in-sourced production offers.
See on d2pnews.com
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
A great article by Lonnie Wilson, pen-pal of over 10 years.
Focus on lean and get those cost reductions, and more.
See on www.industryweek.com
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
Every time a natural or human-made disaster occurs, there are journalists and bloggers to see in the resulting supply chain disruption evidence that just-in-time (JIT) is wrong and should be abandoned as an objective.
This is based primarily on the perception that JIT means zero inventories. Since zero inventories means zero production, it is obvious that not all inventory is waste. What is waste is unnecessary inventory, which is a bit more subtle because it requires you to tell what is necessary from what is not. There are telltale signs, like thickness of dust or the inability of anyone to tell you what materials are for, but that is the easy part. Beyond that, you have to figure out experimentally what you really need.
What JIT really is about is protecting yourself against shortages by vigilance rather than inventory. This means keeping accurate inventory data, monitoring the in- and out-flows, monitoring the disruptions that can be anticipated, and responding quickly to events. The reason to pursue this strategy is that , while protecting yourself against shortages by inventories works with crude oil, it does not when you are dealing with thousands of items. If you try, you end up with full warehouses that happen not to contain the item you need today.
When a disaster hits your supply chain, the quick response cannot be yours alone. You need your suppliers’ help, and that is why you cannot be in adversarial relationships with them. Long-term, single-source agreements, the regular exchange of business and technical information, and collaborative problem-solving are all necessary to cement the relationships that make a joint emergency response possible.
See on blog.kinaxis.com
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This guest post on Mark Graban’s blog treats an important but often neglected subject. It forgets, however, what I see as the number one problem with tool cribs: operators leaving their work stations to fetch tools. In some machine shops, you see a line of machinists waiting in line at the tool crib while machines and work pieces stand idle.
Instead, in a Lean shop, the tool crib sets up milk runs to pick up worn tools and deliver fresh ones. The tool crib is a support organization with the purpose of supporting production, not disrupting it.
See on www.leanblog.org
