May 14 2013
Improvement at Chrysler supplier Dakkota | Automotive News
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
Dakkota Systems’ instrument panel factory is joined at the hip to Chrysler’s Windsor minivan assembly plant.
See on www.autonews.com
May 10 2013
Michelin’s Obsession with Quality | Pete Selleck | IndustryWeek
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“…It’s brand image,” he explained. “There is tremendous value to the perception of trust—customers don’t want to worry about the products they buy; they want it to be trouble free. We can offer them that….
We all use the same equipment to make tire, so we know it’s not the equipment that makes the difference. It’s the interface between the equipment, the material and the person—the training and the qualification of the person—that makes the difference.”
Michel Baudin‘s insight:
I see two key statements in this article, both quoted above:
- The first is an acknowledgement that the company’s reputation for quality is its crown jewels. It’s priceless, and worth any burden to nurture and protect, and the classical “cost of quality” calculations based on the direct costs of failures, appraisals and repairs are irrelevant.
- The second is that the key is the way people work with machines. Selleck does not reference jidoka, but his thinking is in line with it and, unlike the bulk of the American literature on Lean, puts the spotlight on production engineering
See on www.industryweek.com
May 10 2013
Lean in the Australian bottle cap industry | Foodmagazine
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
The key is to ensure that before program start-up, the organisation’s leaders buy-in to the fact that their lean management program must be viewed from a whole-of-business perspective.”
Michel Baudin‘s insight:
If you have been wondering about the specifics of Lean in the Australian bottle cap industry, the article will disappoint you.
It is a generic discussion about management, strategy, training, and metrics, with arguable points that could be made about any business, from car making to slaughtering pigs and selling insurance. All you would need to do is change the title and the picture.
Without setting foot in an bottle cap plant in Australia, however, it is not difficult to imagine some of the specific challenges the industry faces, like a market of only 23 million consumers spread over an area almost as large as the US.
Given that resin pellets and pigments are less bulky than caps, they are easier to truck around and you might wonder whether this leads the industry to set up many small plants near customers rather than a few large plants.
You might also wonder whether they are delivered to customers as heaps in bins or in sleeves with a controlled orientiation for easy feeding into capping machines…
These are just a few of the questions the article does NOT answer. So why clip it? To successfully implement Lean in a new industry, you need these answers and many others about its management and its technology.
Then you need to work with managers and engineers to not only copy approaches and tools from other indusries, but also adapt them and invent new ones as needed. The article’s authors may have done this, but it is not what they are sharing.
See on www.foodmag.com.au
May 9 2013
Lean dairy farming in New Zealand | The Southland Times
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“Southland’s dairy farms and economy could reap the benefits of a manufacturing programme designed to increase efficiency in the industry.
The Venture Southland-led Lean Manufacturing Programme focuses on enhancing on-farm performance, reducing input costs and developing the skills and knowledge of farmers by identifying areas where efficiency gains can be made.”
Michel Baudin‘s insight:
Based on the article, it boils down to 5S.
See on i.stuff.co.nz
May 15 2013
Lloyd’s Confuses Lean with Outsourcing | The Strategic Sourcerer
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“Lean manufacturing practices can create efficiency and reduce waste, but smaller inventories put companies at risk for major supply chain disruptions. Many organizations are reconsidering their procurement strategies for emergency preparedness after discovering their operational vulnerability in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, as well as the flooding in Thailand, according to Lloyd’s.”
Since when is purchasing parts from half-way around the world a “Lean manufacturing practice”? Toyota and Honda do import parts into the US from Japan, but they have been working steadily to increase the domestic content of the cars they build in the US.
In a Lean supply chain, you use as many local suppliers as possible and only buy from afar if you can’t help it. And local suppliers are subject to the same disasters as you, and inventory in the pipeline is just one more asset that can be destroyed in the earthquake or tsunami.
In the late 1930s, the German aircraft industry organized its supply chain in a system called “ABC,” which involved frequent deliveries from nearby suppliers and almost no inventory at the assembly site. It was in anticipation of a man-made disaster: enemy air raids. Allied bombs could not destroy components that had yet tp be made.
The article just reiterates the old belief that you can protect yourself against shortages by holding inventory. It may work for crude oil, but not for the 30,000 items needed to build a car. To protect against a Fukushima type event, you would have to keep weeks of safety stocks of all the items all the time, which is not a practical idea.
See on www.strategicsourceror.com
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By Michel Baudin • Press clippings • 0 • Tags: Honda, Lean supply chain, Supply chain, Toyota