Nov 21 2011
An Alternative to Kanban: One-Piece Continuous Flow
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This is a guest post by Jim Coplien on Jeff Sutherland’s blog. Jim’s research seems thorough
Via scrum.jeffsutherland.com
Nov 21 2011
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This is a guest post by Jim Coplien on Jeff Sutherland’s blog. Jim’s research seems thorough
Via scrum.jeffsutherland.com
By Michel Baudin • Blog clippings • 0 • Tags: History of technology, Lean
Nov 21 2011
This was a post in the discussion in the AME discussion group on LinkedIn that Karen Wilhelm prompted with the following question:
Karen Wilhelm: What languages are spoken at your facility? How do you manage the communication challenge? No matter where a factory, or even an office, is situated, there are likely to be several languages spoken by employees. In your experience, how does that affect employee involvement, company culture, daily performance, and safety? What are your strategies for bridging language differences?
Written communication can be addressed more easily than oral communication, by using photographs, drawings, cartoons, pictograms, ideograms and color codes as much as possible. It works, but only as a short term solution: these symbols amount to a new language that the participants need to learn, so you don’t want to overdo it. In the long run, the work force should be proficient and literate in the local language, and you should do what it takes to get it to this point. If you don’t want to make language proficiency a prerequisite in hiring, then you must provide in-house language training.
A good example of a system understood across multiple languages is traffic signals in Europe that contain no words and are understandable to a Lithuanian truck driver on the road in Portugal. This system is easily learned as part of basic driver’s ed. The Chinese writing system is another example that, for over 2,000 years, has allowed written communication among people who speak dialects like Mandarin and Cantonese that are as different from each other as German and French. But it takes 10 years to learn.
Spoken communication in the work place is more problematic because it is more difficult to control. You can’t prevent two operators from using a common native tongue when talking to each other, but it has the effect of excluding third parties, which, immediately causes interpersonal problems and may impact quality, productivity, and even safety. In factories that are foreign transplants, expatriate managers often have discussions in their own language, which accidentally or deliberately keeps locals out of the loop.
While it is reasonable to expect shop floor operators to master English if the plant is in the US, or Spanish if it is in Mexico, you cannot expect them to also learn Swedish because it is owned by a company based in Stockholm. At the management level, multinational companies usually have an official language in which everyone is supposed to be professionally functional. And managers make a point of never using any other language in a mixed group. For example, two Swedes in the privacy of an office may converse in Swedish, but switch immediately to English if an Italian joins them.
By Michel Baudin • Management • 6 • Tags: Management
Nov 20 2011
In any country, if you can present Lean as the continuation of the work of local pioneers, it is easier to implement than as a wholly alien concept. Lean’s debt to Ford, Taylor, Gilbreth, the TWI program, and others is acknowledged in Japan, which makes the connection easy to make in the US. In Russia, it was more of a challenge.
At OrgProm in 2008, Mikel Wader first told me about Gastev, who was by then so obscure that his books had not been reprinted in 40 years and it took months for OrgProm’s Julia Klimova to locate copies for me. A quick look at Gastev’s works then convinced me that he was indeed someone Russians could look up to as a precursor to Lean. Alexey Kapitonovitch Gastev (1882-1939) was the father of industrial engineering in Russia, creator of the Central Institute of Labor in Moscow in 1920, author of How Work Must be Done (Как надо работать) and Worker Training (Трудовые установки). Through an example, Figure 1 illustrates his thinking. His career was cut short when the government shot him as a “counter-revolutionary” in 1939.
Figure 1. Gastev’s sketch of multiple phases of improvement on a tube piercing operation
In 2008, OrgProm was already making efforts to naturalize Lean for Russia, for example by using the graphic style of soviet-era posters in illustrations of 5S. In the same spirit, I thought that establishing a “Gastev Prize” for manufacturing excellence would also make sense and suggested it. OrgProm followed up, and I was pleased this morning to receive the following notice from Omsk University’s Konstantin Novikov:
PROJECT OF THE YEAR: CUP, AK Gastev.Gasteva Cup – a public initiative, Interregional Public Movement “Lin-Forum. Professionals lean manufacturing. “It lies in the organization and conduct of national competition efficiency of production systems among the leading companies. Companies may be nominated for the award and the Cup as Gasteva program effectiveness and individual projects. Results evaluates expert group, consisting of the most respected and experienced expert consultants on operational efficiency and top managers of successful companies. The award ceremony will be held Gasteva Cup on November 15-18 at the VI Forum “Development of production systems” (up to 2011 – Russian Lin forum “Lean Russia”).
By Michel Baudin • History, Management • 4 • Tags: industrial engineering, Lean, Management
Nov 19 2011
Via Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
The article Lean Manufacturing: Measuring To Get Results by Gerald Najarian lists a number of useful metrics. It also opens with the saying, or cliche, that “you get what you measure.”
The implications are (1) that people will always do whatever it takes to maximize their metrics, and (2) that, if you put the right metrics in place, improvement will take care of itself. While I agree that we need good metrics, we should not overestimate their impact. Peer pressure and personal ethics, among other factors, drive most people more than their performance metrics. And even when employees do their utmost to maximize their scores, they often do not have the necessary skills, and performance targets will have no effect unless backed up by some form of training, coaching and support.
Via ezinearticles.com
By Michel Baudin • Metrics, Press clippings • 35 • Tags: Lean, Management, Performance
Nov 18 2011
10 years ago, I wrote an article by this title in Karen Wilhelm’s Lean Directions, and a detailed treatment of pull systems in Lean Logistics, pp. 199-270 (2005). While 6 to 10 years in an eternity in Information Technology, it is not in Manufacturing, and I have not seen evidence that technological advances since then have invalidated these discussions yet. Also in 2005, Arun Rao and I wrote a paper on RFID Applications in Manufacturing, which outlined ways this technology could be used, among other things, to implement the Kanban replenishment logic on the side of an assembly line. To the best of our knowledge, it still isn’t broadly used, and bar codes are still the state of the art on the shop floor.
For placing orders with suppliers, on the other hand, the recirculating hardcopy Kanban has never really taken root in the US, and orders are usually placed electronically. When Kanbans are used with suppliers, they are usually single-use cards printed by the supplier to match electronic orders, that are attached to parts and scanned when the corresponding parts are consumed to trigger a reorder. This is the eKanban system, and more a horseless carriage than a car, in that it is an electronic rendition of a system whose logic was constrained by the use of cards.
By Michel Baudin • Technology • 0 • Tags: IT, Kanban, Lean manufacturing
Nov 21 2011
Chaku-Chaku lines covered in the Manila Times today — When in the US press?
Via Scoop.it – Cellular manufacturing
Chaku-chaku lines are the second generation of cells, allowing a single operator to run15 or even 20 machines. The key concept is for all the machines to have automatic unloading, so that the operator focuses on validating each step through go/no-go gauges and loading the workpiece into the next machine. It’s a concept that deserves more attention than it has received so far outside of Japan.
Via www.manilatimes.net
Share this:
Like this:
By Michel Baudin • Press clippings • 0 • Tags: Cellular manufacturing, industrial engineering, Manufacturing engineering