Lean Manufacturing Archives | Page 38 of 54

Alignment of People, Process and Purpose

By Jon Miller - October 24th, 2007

A few years ago during a visit to the gemba of high volume manufacturing client, I found a good case study in a disjointed Lean implementation. There was a lack of alignment between how management was leading the Lean effort (providing

Highlights from Lean Manufacturing Journey to the West

By Jon Miller - October 13th, 2007

On this trip to China I found a lot of openness to learning about new things, and Lean manufacturing in particular. People in China are certainly proud of their 4,000 years of history, but they are eager to learn and progress. We could

Guidelines for Continuous Moving Lines

By Jon Miller - October 11th, 2007

This article is in response to a question posted by a reader about guidelines for continuous moving lines as part of a Lean manufacturing implementation. This is not a comprehensive list of all things to consider when designing and man

Questions About Lean Manufacturing in China

By Jon Miller - October 7th, 2007

I will be in China this week seeing some factories and talking to people about Lean manufacturing. Adapting and applying time-tested methods and approaches to new environments and new challenges is always a treat. I go with many questi

Prioritizing the Elimination of the 7 Types of Waste

By Jon Miller - October 3rd, 2007

Tim Wood helps us remember the 7 types of waste, but he does not teach us about prioritizing the elimination of the 7 types of waste. “TIM WOOD” stands for Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Over-pr

Gary Convis on the Role of Management in Lean Manufacturing

By Jon Miller - September 23rd, 2007

Gary Convis is the Chairman of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Kentucky and also serves in Officer roles for Toyota’s North American holding companies. Gary Convis helped start up NUMMI, and he was the first American President of a ve

We Live in a Pull Universe

By Jon Miller - September 21st, 2007

Lean manufacturing works, and this has been proven through decades of practice. Yet decades are admittedly not much when measured against geologic time. Some aspects of TPS such building in quality, getting ideas from people who actual

This Too is a Kanban

By Jon Miller - September 20th, 2007

The orthodox description of a kanban is a rectangular card in a plastic sleeve used to reorder materials from a supplier or an upstream process, or a triangular metal plate used to signal production for a process that requires changeov

Push, Pull, Paper Clips & Problem Solving

By Jon Miller - September 18th, 2007

The Toyota Production System, or what we call sometimes call Lean management, is simply the practice of planning, trying out your plan, reflecting (hansei) on what worked and what did not work and making adjustments through problem sol

Keep Your Kanban Cards Close to Your Genbutsu

By Jon Miller - September 17th, 2007

The primary function of a kanban card is to provide information about production instructions. Kanban cards contain information about where to produce and transport a particular product, when and in what quantity. For information to be

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