Lean manufacturing

The pursuit of concurrent improvement in all dimensions of manufacturing performance through projects involving both the production floor and support services.

May 21 2013

Lean for Managing versus Managing for Lean | Bill Waddell

See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing

How to apply lean thinking so as to make bad decisions faster and more often than you ever thought possible …http://t.co/BsdllK0IEF

 

Michel Baudin‘s insight:
I couldn’t agree more with Bill on this. It is an issue of effectiveness versus efficiency. In all support activities, the first order of business is to improve effectiveness. Then it is OK to worry about efficicency. First, get the right things done, then worry about getting them done right. In manufacturing, it applies to logistics, maintenance, QA, engineering. HR, etc., as well as to Accounting.

See on www.idatix.com

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May 10 2013

Michelin’s Obsession with Quality | Pete Selleck | IndustryWeek

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Pete Selleck

“…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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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

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May 6 2013

Top 10 Reason Why Lean Transformation Fails | Tim McMahon

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“In my experience these are ten reasons why Lean implementation fails:

  1. “No Strategy  […]
  2. No Leadership Involvement  […]
  3. Relying on Lean Sensei/Champion  […]
  4. Copying Others  […]
  5. Thinking Lean Is A Tool  […]
  6. Lack of Customer Focus  […]
  7. Not Engaging Employees  […]
  8. Not Educating Employees […]
  9. Lack of Understanding  […]
  10. Conflicting Metrics […]”
Michel Baudin‘s insight:

Would my top 10 list be exactly the same? Probably not, but there would be extensive overlap.

See on www.aleanjourney.com

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May 5 2013

Big Data – The Antithesis of Lean Thinking | Bill Waddell

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“It’s too bad lean thinking is free.  I suppose that’s not entirely true; a lean transformation actually costs a few bucks for the learning – consultants, books and training.  But it is nothing like the cost of an ERP system, and it pales in comparison to ERP thinking on steroids – ‘Big Data’.  Because the ERP and Big Data providers play in such a high dollar arena they can and do spend a lot on very focused marketing efforts.  IBM, a company that stands to gain quite a bit from Big Data becoming the focus of business management, is providing “software, curriculum, case studies—including guest speakers” to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Fordham, Yale and about 300 other schools.  Too bad those schools aren’t cranking out kids steeped in lean thinking, but there is no one who stands to make a enough money from peddling lean in a position to buy college curriculums on such a scale…”

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

While I concur with Bill on the irrelevance of “Big Data” in manufacturing, I can’t follow him when he says it is a “singularly bad idea” for business in general.

Big Data, per se, is actually not an idea but a phenomenon experienced in companies like Google, Amazon, eBay, Netflix, and others that process clicks, queries and transactions from millions of users, and generatie Terabytes of data every day. This is what Big Data is. Making sense of it is vital to these companies, and its volume requires special technology.

Even in a large manufacturing company, specs, orders, production status and history, quality problem reports, etc., add up to Gibabytes of data in total, not Terabytes every day. While it is beyond what you can handle on an Excel spreadsheet, it does not qualify as Big Data and does not require the special technology that ecommerce companies have developed.

I also agree that the hot dog example from the HBR blog is simplistic. To give a less trivial example, assume you are in the business of providing streaming videos, and you discover from your customer data that those who view “Tora, Tora, Tora” also tend to view “The Bridges of Madison County.” That is unexpected and you wonder why. Then you find out that the customers who view both are married couples, form which you infer that the wife demands a chick flick for every aircraft-carrier movie…

This is a made-up example, but Ed Frazelle, in Supply Chain Strategy, quotes a real one about on-line ordering patterns for clothing. What kind of garments do customers tend to order together? I have asked that question around, and never met anyone who came up with the right answer, although, once you know it, it makes perfect sense: they order the same garment, in the same size, in different colors. And it is good to know if you are in charge of order picking.

See on www.idatix.com

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May 3 2013

Lean Survival Strategies in the Textile Industry | Chain Reactions | Industry Week

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“The traditional lean approach […] omits the customer from the scenario—a rather glaring omission. The other approach, though, is extended lean, which goes beyond the plant level to include the customer and other supply chain partners. ‘Traditional lean works on processes within the plant,’ Lail says, ‘whereas extended lean connects the entire supply chain.’”

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

I am sure many others familiar with TPS and Lean will find the notion of a Lean approach that “omits the customer” as objectionable as I do. The gist of the article is that textile manufacturer Valdese Weavers survived by ignoring manufacturing and focusing instead on moving full truckloads.

This puts the Valdese Weavers experience in direct contradiction with that of companies that have seen the pursuit of transportation efficiency degrade ratther than enhance their overall performance, as documented, for example, in the work of Hau Lee.

See on www.industryweek.com

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May 2 2013

Toyota’s IT Vision at Industry Week’s Best Plants Conference | Chain of Thought

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“‘…Toyota Motor’s group leaders were complaining about the systems IT was delivering. They wouldn’t let them focus on being out on the production line. So IT’s focus became providing tools to allow group leaders to be more efficient…”

Michel Baudin‘s insight:

The article’s author is challenged about getting to the point but, when he eventually does, it is worth reading. What I found most original is IT focusing on the needs of group leaders, Toyota’s name for first-line managers, who oversee four to six teams of four to six operatiors each. It is a constituency is definitely underserved by IT in most manufacturing organizations and whose potential is underestimated.

Most companies expect little from first-line managers beyond expediting parts, tracking time and attendance, and disciplining workers to make their numbers. In fact, being both part of management and in direct contact with production operators on the shop floor puts them in a unique position as agents of change.

This is why TPS puts them in charge of smaller groups, with the expectation that they will spend time leading improvement projects and supporting the professional growth of their teams. Most IT groups pay more attention to the executive suite than to the shop floor, where, in particular, you are not just interacting with people through screens but also with machines through their controllers. This requires a different set of IT skills, and the article says that Toyota partnered with Rockwell Automation for this purpose.

See on mhlnews.com

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