Apr 15 2012
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
More about GE’s conversion from Six Sigma to Lean:
General Electric is able to bring jobs back to America after adopting lean manufacturing to improve efficiency.
Apr 15 2012
The aggregate metric for equipment most often mentioned in the Lean literature is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). I first encountered it 15 years ago, when a client’s intern who had been slated to help on a project I was coaching, was instead commandeered to spend the summer calculating the OEEs of machine tools. I argued that the project was a better opportunity than just taking measurements, both for the improvements at stake for the client and for the intern’s learning experience, but I lost. Looking closer at the OEE itself, I felt that it was difficult to calculate accurately, analyze, and act on. In other words, it does not meet the requirements listed in Part 1.
Apr 14 2012
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
A Honeywell plant in Lincolnshire, Illinois,, went from being one of the most messed up to one of the best. ….The Economist
Via www.economist.com
Apr 13 2012
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
An important topic, but the five skills in the article don’t match what I have seen in factories. Requiring supervisors to know how to do every job is tentamount to restricting that position to people who have come up from the ranks of operators. Many effective supervisors do have this background, but it takes them so long to become supervisors that it is usually as far as they go. In many companies, you also encounter supervisors who are recent college grads with an engineering degree and sometimes an MBA, who then move on to other jobs. They obviously can’t know the details of every operation, but can be effective if they have team leaders who do.
In knowledge of responsibilities, the article mentions codes and union contracts, but omits the execution of the production plan. In ability to Kaizen, I would broaden this to the ability to lead improvement projects, and the background required for this goes beyond 5S and problem-solving to include line design concepts and some understanding of SMED, cells, heijunka, kanbans, etc.
Yes, supervisors should know how to lead and to teach, but, in a Lean environment, they are also responsible for helping operators through career planning, which means organizing job rotations and training to develop skills towards their individual goals, and providing regular feedback.
Via www.smartbrief.com
Apr 10 2012
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This article asserts the opposite. According to it, “Lean principles are based on Western ideas and methods.” I never thought Japan was part of the West. And Lean is supposed to be incompatible with “the teachings of Confucius,” that are at least as influential in Japan as in China. According to the author, China has been confucianist for 3,000 years, which puts it at 1,000 BCE. It is interesting, considering that Confucius wasn’t born for another 500 years. It is like making Steve Jobs a contemporary of da Vinci.
It might have occurred to the author that there might be more immediate reasons for her problems implementing Lean in the Pearl River Delta. For one, a labor structure that is similar to that of the maquiladoras of the US-Mexico border: girls from the hinterland coming to work in factories for a year or two. For another, in management, the lingering influence of Maoism.
All the factories in the world draw their work forces from societies with their own cultural idiosyncrasies. This is equally true in the US, France, Russia, or China. However, once on the shop floor, dealing with machines and production lines, the national culture is little more than background noise. You have to pay attention to the local etiquette, but that is not a show stopper.
Via www.scmr.com
Apr 18 2012
Should Lean efforts focus on the supply chain or within the plant? Comments on an Industry Week article
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This article quotes Paul Myerson as saying that manufacturers preferred to “lean out within their four walls before working heavily with customers and suppliers.”
While I have heard this from many sources, I do not believe it is true. Having worked both within the four walls of plants and on their supply chains, I have repeatedly seen manufacturing managers conclude that their manufacturing needed no improvement, and that all the problems were with suppliers.
Before Paul Myerson, I also wrote a book on Lean Logistics. In 2005, it was the first on this subject. But I also wrote books on Lean Assembly (2002) and Working with Machines (2007), both of which deal with what happens “within the four walls.” Guess what? Lean Logistics sells more copies than the other two combined, and I don’t think it is a better book. To me, it just means that its subject is getting more attention.
Actually, it is getting a disproportionate amount of attention, and too early. Manufacturers should focus on what happens within their walls first, and fix it. The vast majority, including many claiming to be Lean, have not. Until they do, they have no credibility with their suppliers and no business telling them how to improve.
See on www.industryweek.com
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By Michel Baudin • Press clippings 71 • Tags: Lean assembly, Lean manufacturing, Logistics, Manufacturing engineering, Supply Chain Management