Lean Manufacturing Archives | Page 16 of 24

We Learn Nothing from History

By Jon Miller - February 2nd, 2010

Even as Toyota mops up the mess from their sales volume-driven expansion-related quality problems, challenger Volkswagen AG “…unveiled an ambitious plan to boost annual sales to eight million vehicles in the midterm and to

What Lean is Not and Never Will Be

By Jon Miller - February 1st, 2010

Industrial anthropologist, best selling author and eminence grise John Shook wrote a thoughtful column on the recent debate around what lean means and where we need to go next. He concludes that lean has always been about Toyota but no

Lean Product Design, 3P and Nature’s Greatest Engineers

By Jon Miller - January 4th, 2010

Over the holidays I had the chance to catch up with some reading as well as visiting some bookmarked websites. One of my favorites is the TED video lecture series. The 20 minute talk by Janine Benyus titled Biomimicry: Innovation Inspi

Cross Training in a One Piece Flow Cell

By Jon Miller - November 28th, 2009

I am working through the backlog of Ask Gemba questions. Bas asked: In a one piece flow cell that is fully loaded with customer demand, how can new people be trained, without creating significant flow problems? Operators are moving wit

Made Up Lean Enterprise Statistics

By Jon Miller - November 17th, 2009

For a group of people who claim to practice management by fact and question the as-given condition, we in the lean community have a troubling habit of citing and accepting made up lean enterprise statistics. In fact I would say that at

Scientific Management 2.0

By Jon Miller - November 8th, 2009

Bob Emiliani wrote a thoughtful call to arms piece in the Superfactory articles section this week. Enticingly titled Free Money, Free Love it predictably delivers neither of those things. Instead Bob makes a case for the need for the l

Green Manufacturing Tour of Toyota Tsutsumi

By Jon Miller - October 31st, 2009

An article on the CarAdvice.com.au website titled Toyota’s Tsutsumi Plant – tour a green role model highlights some of the advances Toyota has made at the factory which assembles the Prius hybrid car. Some featured environm

Brilliant Value Stream Mapping Icon Fonts

By Jon Miller - October 20th, 2009

Yesterday, Jamie Flinchbaugh shared a discovery on his blog. Also, the nice folks at Ambor have developed several very useful fonts for Lean. Skill Matrix Font The Harvey Balls ideograms are great for filling out the skill matrix. Comp

Online Training for Quick Changeover and SMED

By Jon Miller - October 7th, 2009

The Quick Changeover and SMED course is now available from Gemba Academy. There are 12 video modules with quizzes and supporting documents, for a total of approximately 6 hours of step by step learning. The twelve modules are; Module 1

How to Be Lean in a Batch Production Industry

By Jon Miller - September 22nd, 2009

Faisal asked: How to use lean in batch production industry? Most of the time I hear customers saying “lean is for mass production companies and not for us.” This is a common question and one worth shining some light on. The

The Lean Energy Treasure Hunt

By Jon Miller - August 26th, 2009

One of the most enjoyable and rewarding lean manufacturing improvement activities is the energy treasure hunt. The booty we claim on these energy treasure hunts include savings by shutting off motors or machines left running, replacing

Agnosia: Losing the Ability to See the Obvious

By Jon Miller - August 24th, 2009

In order to succeed at leading anything that involves people, one needs to know a lot about people. This is especially true when it comes to lean manufacturing, lean retail, lean distribution, lean healthcare or whatever you prefer to

One Point Lesson: Takt Image

By Jon Miller - August 10th, 2009

John asked: What is the difference between Takt Time and Takt Image? Takt time is the calculated pace of production based on the average speed at which the customer is buying a product or service. The formula is net available time to p

Value Stream Management: Evidence on the Parking Lot

By Jon Miller - August 3rd, 2009

Today I was able to drop in on a customer on the return leg of a business trip. I was looking forward to visiting old friends whom I hadn’t seen a few years, the new building they had moved into in early 2009 and also their progr

Ask Gemba: Volume and Variability in Demand Segmentation

By Jon Miller - July 31st, 2009

Joe asked an interesting question: I am doing some research on demand segmentation and found some rather conflicting information from two credible resources. According to The Toyota Way Fieldbook when leveling production you produce Hi

Value Added Percentage Question

By Jon Miller - July 16th, 2009

Yesterday I came across an example of a value stream whose numbers left me puzzled. The value-added percentage was greater than 100. This seemed impossible at first but I now understand how it can happen. The process, the numbers, and

The Power of U

By Jon Miller - July 8th, 2009

My Japanese teachers often spoke about making processes flow “like a single brushstroke”. It was and still is a phrase difficult to translate. Often I would mimic picking up a calligraphy brush and sweeping it in a u-shape

One Point Lesson: Kamishibai

By Jon Miller - July 6th, 2009

Prof. Jeffrey Liker uploaded a slideshow from 2005 titled The Toyota Way: A Sociotechnical Learning Organization in Action. The image above is from this presentation in which Liker touches briefly on the kamishibai board and its use. W

Boeing Gets a Grip

By Jon Miller - July 2nd, 2009

…on its supply chain, according to a Wall Street Journal article from July 2nd, 2009. Boeing is in talks to buy Vought and possibly other suppliers in an attempt to gain control over the supply of parts. It’s about time lea

Saluting NUMMI

By Jon Miller - June 30th, 2009

The New United Motor Manufacturing factory in Fremont, California was originally a General Motors plant opened in 1962. For the past 25 years it has been a successful joint venture between GM and Toyota. Bloomberg reports their uncerta

Seeking: Checklist for a Sense of Urgency

By Jon Miller - June 25th, 2009

“The most important factors for success are patience, a focus on long term rather than short-term results, reinvestment in people, product, and plant, and an unforgiving commitment to quality.” This is a quote from R

The Amazing Adventures of Kanban

By Jon Miller - June 17th, 2009

Kanban was born nearly 60 years ago. It’s creator, Taiichi Ohno, intended kanban to combat the evil overlord Overproduction, Mother of All Wastes and her Minions of WIP. The battle is far from won. During those six decades kanban

Tsurube System: How to Flow through Shared or Batch Equipment

By Jon Miller - May 20th, 2009

One of the inevitable consequences of 5S activity is that you find out that you don’t need some of the things you have, and that you don’t have some of the things you need. More often than not, you also find things you have

One-point Lesson: One-point Lesson

By Jon Miller - May 11th, 2009

Sometimes we are so busy that we think we don’t make time to develop the people around us. Instead we fight fires or give direct instructions. This might be effective in the short-term but inevitably small problems are missed. Th

Are Holidays Batch Processing?

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2009

Getting back into the swing of things after most of last week away on holiday, a thought popped into my head: “Are holidays batch processing?” Something about how we spend time at work and how we take time off reminds me of

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