May 31 2015
“Lean in manufacturing staffing requires a close review of your current staffing procedures so that you can identify areas where to eliminate waste.”
Source: smallbiz-resources.com
May 28 2015
“Don’t expect a positive ROI from your lean and Six Sigma investments if they are nothing but a pretty picture.
I once had a plant manager tell me his factory had implemented Six Sigma, but there was not a single statistical process control chart. How is that possible? Another had the control charts in place but refused to allow the operator to shut the process down when it indicated an out-of-control condition. Another plant claimed it was lean but had a dozen bins of parts stacked on the floor as part of a two bin system. Another plant routinely violated the daily production plan by rescheduling orders, and then the plant blamed the supply chain for causing it to frequently run out of parts (which then drove it to change the schedule… a vicious circle).”
Source: www.industryweek.com
May 22 2015
“The company-specific production system (XPS) of Chrysler is the World Class Manufacturing (WCM) concept, developed by the Fiat Group in 2006. But, what exactly is the WCM? And, what does Chrysler see as keys to success in WCM?
A few answers are given these days at the 4th annual Lean Management Journal Conference in Birmingham, UK: in his morning keynote, Mauro Pino—Vice President for vehicle assembly operations and the Head of World Class Manufacturing in the Chrysler Group—explains how Chrysler “achieves manufacturing excellence across the globe”. Pino stresses that “WCM is how we do our business. Period.” The presentation reminds me of the WCM factories I visited in Brazil, Spain and Sweden last year, all of which confirmed that WCM can be a powerful improvement system—if implemented seriously. Let’s take a closer look at the concept of WCM.”
May 9 2015
“Torero is an Indian leather manufacturing company that is the exclusive global license holder for Cross brand. Here is their story. It aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make In India’ campaign. It has nearly $20 million in annual revenues, employs 4000 workers….”
Source: yourstory.com
Apr 3 2015
“[…]In 2002, Michael George and Robert Lawrence Jr. published Lean Six Sigma: Combining Six Sigma with Lean Speed, a book that started a revolution that quickly took hold in boardrooms around the globe. Total Quality Control and Six Sigma had always appealed to senior managers, but now it came with the added bonus of increased speed and reduced cost. It was a very welcome addition in the post “dot-com bubble” era and was always too good to be true.[…]”
Source: www.leanblog.org
This is a guest post on Mark Graban’s Lean Blog. Like Mark, I agree with enough of what Erwin says to recommend reading it. Approaches like Lean or Six Sigma emerge out of specific contexts where they are successful, but then their boosters go global cosmic.
Six Sigma started out as a modernization of the tools used to achieve process capability in various segments of the electronics industry, with the goal of making statistical design of experiments a common practice, and the belt system was a way to propagate this body of knowledge. Success in this limited endeavor did not justify selling it as a business panacea.
Lean started out as TPS, which is, to date, the best known way to make cars. TPS has a much broader scope than Six Sigma, encompassing management and technology. It includes human resource management as well as designs for welding lines. The “Lean” label for TPS was a way to allow other car companies to apply it without explicitly referencing Toyota, and to package it for use beyond the car industry. While it’s clearly applicable in many industries, it’s not a panacea either.
What happens when you try to expand an approach beyond its range of applicability is that you drain it of substance in order to make it generic, as has happened to both Lean and Six Sigma, not to mention Lean Six Sigma. All you are left with at that point is homilies.
I have explained my perspective on these matters in the post “MIT article comparing Lean, TQM, Six Sigma, “and related enterprise process improvement methods.”
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
Jun 13 2015
Applying Lean to Engineering | ENGINEERING.com
“[…]Applying lean concepts to engineering is a complex task, but as Dearborn Mid-West Company discovered the increased efficiencies are well worth the effort. To manage that complexity Dearborn focused on five key areas:
Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.engineering.com
Share this:
Like this:
By Michel Baudin • Press clippings 0 • Tags: Lean, Lean Engineering