Lean Archives | Page 142 of 157

Eight Reasons Your Lean/Six Sigma Initiative Could Fail

By Ron Pereira - June 1st, 2008

Launching a Lean or Six Sigma initiative signals a move towards operational excellence and a dedication to continuous improvement. Yet, navigating this journey successfully requires awareness of certain critical challenges that are oft

Conference Calls, Kids, and SMED

By Ron Pereira - May 30th, 2008

My wife is out of town to visit some relatives which means it’s me and my three kiddos for the weekend. Here is the sticky part. I had to arrange an important conference call today and was totally stressing out on how I was going to

Definitely Not the Pull System: Anderson Cooper 360

By Jon Miller - May 26th, 2008

Not exactly breaking news, but highly amusing: video link How many wastes can you spot in this video? What are the causes of these wastes? How would you redesign this system? Despite the “push”, is this system better or wor

What You Find on the Floor Tells You a Lot

By Jon Miller - May 15th, 2008

Look down and pay attention to what is on the floor you walk on, the next time you walk the floor. What you find on the floor tells you a lot about what kind of thinking you will find on the floor, carpeted or concrete. Most of us look

Calculating Optimal Crew Size in Mixed Model Cells

By Ron Pereira - May 13th, 2008

I have a question for you. How would you staff a cell that produces multiple products, all with varying cycle times? In this article I will offer my thoughts and am excited to hear your comments as to how you would (or do) approach it

How metrics like OEE often dictate behavior

By Ron Pereira - May 11th, 2008

A reader of the blog asked me the following question via email. By the way, if you ever have a question please feel free to drop me a line. I am a production engineer for 3 packaging lines and our overall indicator is overall equipme

Why Do Employees Underperform?

By Ron Pereira - May 9th, 2008

The best free lean magazine I know of, Industry Week, recently discussed an interesting survey done by LifeCare Inc. where they investigated why some employees underperform in their jobs. While I am from the school that says you nee

Is Toyota in Trouble?

By Ron Pereira - May 8th, 2008

When I launched Google News this morning my eyes were immediately drawn to the headline “Toyota Posts First Profit Drop in Three Years.” To summarize the article: Net income fell 28 percent to 316.8 billion yen ($3 billion) in the

Confused about Time

By Ron Pereira - May 1st, 2008

For those new to continuous improvement the concept of time can be confusing. In this article I hope to clear up some common misunderstandings. Takt Time The word takt comes to us from the German language and literally means pace or rh

Takt Time Competition at Gemba Panta Rei

By Ron Pereira - April 22nd, 2008

I recently wrote a guest blog over on Gemba Panta Rei where I set up a hypothetical takt time question. Jon Miller has been nice enough to offer up some sweet prizes for those who leave meaningful comments before May 1, 2008. So, if y

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