Lean Manufacturing Archives | Page 17 of 24

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

Ask Gemba: Nuts and Bolts of the Andon System

By Jon Miller - April 12th, 2009

Bas Timmerman asked: We are in the process of designing a synchronised flow process with an intermittent transportation system for a new assembly line. We have no buffer positions in the line, so it is critical that we organise support

Corporate Models of the Future (with bonus Ohno Circle exercise)

By Jon Miller - March 29th, 2009

How Crisis Shapes the Corporate Model is an interesting article in the March 28, 2009, New York Times. It gives some history of how past economic shifts have affected the structure and nature of corporations. The article speculates on

How Do Lean Processes Prevent Human Error?

By Jon Miller - March 24th, 2009

Scott asked an important question on how lean processes can be used to prevent human errors. The good news is that lean processes not only support quality but they lean cannot function without a strong quality culture and organizationa

Should Cross-trained Workers be Paid More?

By Jon Miller - March 12th, 2009

“Now that I can perform more tasks, pay me more.” This was the statement that an HR manager was struggling with recently at a company that is in the midst of introducing cross-training for multi-skilled operators as part of

Guest Post: Should You Display Standardized Work Sheets at the Workstation?

By Jon Miller - March 1st, 2009

by Franck Demarest When discussing this subject with many people, I often encounter the dilemma about the location of standardised work sheet meaning either close to the line or in a cupboard in management office. About which standard

Edwards Deming, Supply Chain Visionary?

By Jon Miller - February 20th, 2009

This is my contribution to the Supply Chain Anti-trends Cross Blogging series organized by Michael Lamoureux of Sourcing Innovation. The Strategic Sourcerer contributed with a farewell to golden parachuted fat cat CEOs and two other ar

Guest Post: Daily Lean Marketing Speech

By Jon Miller - February 18th, 2009

Hello, I am Franck Demarest, 32 years old. I am French and have been working in the continuous improvement field in the automotive industry. I have been in Tier 1 ((JIT Production Responsible, 6 Sigma Black Belt and Lean Facilitator) d

Free Introduction to Lean Manufacturing Video

By Jon Miller - February 17th, 2009

This is the first video from Gemba Academy. We will create both free content and subscription-based content with interactive content and guides you can download to check your learning. This 10-minute video is on YouTube. Please visit w

The Lean Workplace as Classroom

By Jon Miller - February 12th, 2009

The the Harvard Business Review article Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System Kent Bowen and Steven Spear describe Toyota as a “community of scientists” based on the their approach to management. Specifically, th

Where Did Value Stream Mapping Come From?

By Jon Miller - February 10th, 2009

Harish Jose asked about value stream mapping: Is this “tool” used and abused by lean manufacturing practitioners? Why is this tool not explained in Ohno, Monden or Shingo’s books? Shingo does talk about the process an

Celebrating Over 500 Years of Lean Thinking

By Jon Miller - February 9th, 2009

Since 1997 the Lean Enterprise Institute (www.lean.org) has helped to popularize and spread lean thinking worldwide through book publishing, seminars, conferences and many other ways. LEI has been especially generous in sharing

The Top 10 Titans of TPS

By Jon Miller - February 8th, 2009

Sean asked an interesting question: Who would you consider to be the titans of the TPS? Certainly, there was Ohno and Shingo, but is there anyone else that should be on the list? I like to connect the history to people because it shows

Ask Gemba: World Class Direct to Indirect Labor Ratio?

By Jon Miller - January 21st, 2009

B. Huey asked on January 20 in a comment to this article on TPM metrics & financial impact: What is considered a world class ratio for direct labor to indirect & salary? In other words total indirect & salary divided by tot

Further Reflections on Standard Work

By Jon Miller - January 16th, 2009

The topic of standards is really an interesting and deep one with great importance to not only how we do our work but how we do it more effectively. I thank lean healthcare practitioner Brian Buck for giving us an opportunity to explor

The Essential Lean Blogosphere of 2008

By Jon Miller - January 8th, 2009

Welcoming A New Voice As one of the elder statesmen of the lean community, John Shook is an important new voice to join the lean blogosphere in 2008. In this weekly post he takes a deep look at what give Toyota strength and flexibility

HP Printer Pokayoke Example

By Jon Miller - December 30th, 2008

This is a new HP C7250 printer we purchased a few weeks ago. It’s quite the desktop machine, with built in copier-scanner. Setting up the wireless was a skosh frustrating but all in all a great product. While installing the ink c

Actual Takt Time is Planned Takt Time, Actually

By Jon Miller - September 21st, 2008

This week I am in the land of takt time: Germany. A banner on a railroad underpass for a local news program advertised “news at 60 minute takt.” An 80-year old black-and-white photograph at a local museum had a caption of w

5 Things I am Still Learning about Lean Manufacturing

By Jon Miller - September 9th, 2008

Fifteen years to the week since stepping into the stormy presence of Nakao sensei, one of Taiichi Ohno’s students who know goes by the curiously alcoholic moniker of FOM – Father of Moonshine – I am still learning abo

Lean Manufacturing in One Word

By Jon Miller - September 4th, 2008

Some of the most popular so-called lean manufacturing tools (some of which are actually systems, others which are disciplines, yet others which are in fact policies) can be reduced to one word: respect. This is staggering when you thin

Reading Henry Ford's My Life and Work

By Jon Miller - August 23rd, 2008

Finding my trip to Europe extended by almost a week, my stock of reading materials reduced to less than a day’s supply, a moment for panic. But thanks to the Project Gutenberg online book catalog making My Life and Work by Henry

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