Lean Manufacturing Archives | Page 46 of 54

Some Thoughts on Future State Value Stream Mapping

By Jon Miller - June 8th, 2006

To paraphrase a military expression “The most dangerous thing in a combat zone is an officer with a map” in Lean manufacturing terms: “The most dangerous thing on the shop floor is a manager with a value steam map.” I have noth

Physiognomy & Phrenology vs. Root Cause Analysis & Kaizen

By Jon Miller - June 1st, 2006

For 27 years the Harbour Report has been measuring and comparing the performance of automobile companies, using metrics such as productivity defined as vehicles per man hour. This reminded me of a pair of dead sciences called physiogno

Lean Manufacturing in the Construction Industry

By Jon Miller - May 17th, 2006

Eric Sander Senior Operations Consultant I have recently had the pleasure of working with a young business owner who has discovered the potential of Lean Principles in an industry very much in need of improvement, the building trades.

Five Practical Ways to Stay on the Sunny Side of Lean

By Jon Miller - May 12th, 2006

It’s not easy to read so much about the dark side of Lean. I’ve received e-mails this week from readers who are upset that I would post attacks on Lean manufacturing and kaizen. It’s no fun to learn terrible things about your fav

Interview with Darius Mehri, Author of “Notes from Toyota-land”

By Jon Miller - May 11th, 2006

Today we continue exploring the dark side of Lean as we interview Darius Mehri, author of Notes from Toyota-land. Darius is an American who spent three years working as an engineer in Japan at a Toyota group company. He changed the nam

Juxtaposition of an efficient assembly line and stressed workers

Lean Production Does Not Respect People

By Jon Miller - May 10th, 2006

Many of those exposing the dark side of Lean production take aim at “Lean production” as defined in the book The Machine that Changed the World. This book compares the Japanese and U.S. automotive industries and identifies best pra

Kanban cards in a flow with people represented on the cards

Human Kanban

By Jon Miller - May 9th, 2006

Kanban is a material and information flow management tool. They are typically cards attached to containers of parts. The cards contain information about the parts and these cards are reused, traveling with parts. Kanban are used to con

War, Oil and Lean Production

By Jon Miller - May 8th, 2006

Each day this week we will examine aspects of The Dark Side of Lean. Today’s theme is “War, Oil and Lean Production” – admittedly an extreme Left perspective based on Marxist thought and the examination of a murder-suicide at a

From the Mechanical Side to the Dark Side of Lean…

By Jon Miller - May 5th, 2006

This week started with an article about the top 5 reasons for using 3P. Requests from readers took us deeper into SMED and jidoka – all aspects of Lean manufacturing and machines. Without planning it the theme for the week was the �

The 5 Steps to Building Jidoka Equipment

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2006

Delving deeper into themes related to Production Preparation Process (3P) today I’ll explain what is meant by the “5 Steps of Jidoka” mentioned number sixteen of the 16 Catch Phrases of 3P. Fist some background on jidoka. Jidoka

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