Lean Manufacturing Archives | Page 24 of 24

The Power of Ideas from Everyone

By Jon Miller - October 24th, 2004

Too few companies on the Lean journey have effectively incorporated what is known as “teian” or suggestion schemes for employees’ creative ideas. Although kaizen breakthrough activity may seem more dramatic and appeal

The Toyota Job Description: Follow Standards & Find Better Ways

By Jon Miller - October 19th, 2004

The Toyota managers who share their insights with us on our study missions to Japan tell us there are two things that are part of every Toyota employee’s job. They are: 1) Follow the standard 2) Find a better way Kaizen: The Powe

One Piece Flow & Standard WIP

By Jon Miller - October 12th, 2004

I learned a lesson about how easy it is to assume people understand something that sounds simple to you. Near the end of a recent Lean study mission in Japan, one of the participants who is a Six Sigma Black Belt, a dynamic change agen

If You Want to Pull, Don’t Deliver

By Jon Miller - October 5th, 2004

We received a nugget of wisdom from Mr. Nojima of the Logistics group of Yazaki (makers of Creform and Japan’s largest privately held company) during our October study mission to Japan. Mr. Nojima made a statement that “all

Why Kaizen Teams Should Be Cross-Functional

By Jon Miller - October 1st, 2004

The rule of thumb to have a good mix of kaizen team members from different areas is: 1/3rd of the people from the area or process targeted for kaizen, 1/3rd of the people from upstream or downstream processes (customers and suppliers)

Lean and Green

By Jon Miller - September 6th, 2004

One of the most enlightening moments in my personal journey was when I discovered the innovative approaches employed by top Lean companies in Japan to curb waste via efficient environmental management and energy conservation. We visite

Throughput, Bottlenecks, and Capacity: It’s All in the TPCBP

By Jon Miller - July 30th, 2004

One of the most under-appreciated items in the Lean tool bag is the Table of Production Capacity by Process (TPCBP, also known as Process Capacity Table). This one-pager can define the theoretical maximum output of any process by takin

Lean Fundamental: Do Today’s Work Today

By Jon Miller - July 28th, 2004

Working with clients struggling with non-Lean scheduling methods reminded me of the fundamental Lean principle of “Do today’s work today.” This principle involves avoiding late deliveries, matching capacity to demand,

Lean Customer Service

By Jon Miller - July 26th, 2004

According to an often-cited statistic from Harvard Business Review: “Developing a new client relationship costs between six to eight times more than maintaining an existing relationship”. Spending six times more on customer

Quality & Law Enforcement: Detection vs. Prevention

By Jon Miller - July 15th, 2004

During a kaizen workshop, the kaizen team identified the lack of value-added content in the final inspection process. This led to an interesting comparison of quality systems that do not practice Lean manufacturing principles, with the

Kaizen is for Everyone, Everyday

By Jon Miller - July 10th, 2004

It’s encouraging to see that as the Lean buzz expands from manufacturing to healthcare and other industries, some organizations and practitioners are beginning to recognize that there is more to Lean than kaizen events, “Le

What is Jidoka? Test Drive a Minivan

By Jon Miller - January 14th, 2004

I will confess, we own a minivan and I enjoy driving it. It’s a great car. If I wasn’t already a fan of Toyota products and how they make them, the Sienna would undoubtedly make me a fan. As a Lean guy, I particularly like

Focus on Flow Streamlines 5S

By Jon Miller - December 26th, 2003

At the core of Lean Enterprise Transformation are the fundamental principles of customer focus, getting rid of the 7 wastes and creating flow. What follows is the alphabet soup of Lean tools in order to achieve this, including but not

The Lean Factory is Not an Orchestra

By Jon Miller - December 9th, 2003

The idea of an orchestra is sometimes used to explain Takt Time (the beat of production paced to customer demand). In an orchestra, all instruments (processes) play music (perform production) to the same beat (customer demand), but

Pockets of Improvement

By Jon Miller - November 18th, 2003

We had the opportunity recently to give a Lean Enterprise overview presentation to the parent company of a client. The parent company had recently purchased our client, and they were interested in what Lean could do for them. Our clien

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