Keeping You Informed On Lean Manufacturing
In our last “how to implement lean” post, I said we’d look at the following three elements of Straighten and See:
Let’s look at each in turn.
Continue reading “How to Implement Lean Manufacturing: Straighten and See (5S) – Part 4”
I think I’ve mentioned any number of times that I always start with selecting a set of metrics whenever I start with a new client. (For more about that, check my post here.) I recently ran across a new(ish) blog by James Womack, in which he addresses the issue of lean metrics. In that post, he starts with this imaginary (I suppose) illustration:
It’s nearing the end of the second shift and the plant manager of a large factory is standing in the shipping lot. He’s making sure trucks are in place to get all of the cargo loaded that needs to go out tonight. Is this a good example of an earnest leader who walks his talk to meet customer demand without fail? Well, not exactly.
To grasp the situation, you need one more fact: it’s the last day of the quarter. The cargo must get through the gate by midnight to meet the plant’s sales target (the manager’s key metric), no matter the condition or destination of the goods. Otherwise the manager gets a reprimand from headquarters, no bonus, or worse.
That last sentence gets at what makes it more difficult than it should be, at times, to develop metrics.
Next time you hear someone say or imply that lean is about cost cutting, show them this article:
“Former Blue Bell workers describe dirty, unsafe conditions at Brenham ice cream plant”
Continue reading “Blue Bell Creamery: The Antithesis of Lean”
I was just reading an article on the Industry Week website, “Do’s and Don’t’s for a Lean Initiative Implementation”.
One of the “Don’t’s” is:
Don’t move forward with a lean strategy without first ensuring the processes being evaluated and optimized are consistent and predictable. Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment.
I agree with the sentiment of the statement. On the other hand, (and maybe this is just quibbling with wording), I view the “ensuring the processes being evaluated and optimized are consistent and predictable” as a central component of any lean implementation.
In our last post, we took a few moments to talk about the why of Visual Factory (Straighten and See). Let’s get back to the how.
Continue reading “How to Implement Lean Manufacturing: Straighten and See (5S) – Part 3”
We’re in the third phase of implementing a lean manufacturing initiative, Straigthen and See. Last time, we went over the initial steps of the phase. You’ll remember they looked a lot like the initial steps of the second phase of the implementation, Sort and Shine.
Before moving on, I want to spend some time talking about how Straighten and See (and Sort and Shine, for that matter) adds value to the enterprise. In other words, we need to talk about answers to the question: Just what is Straighten and See for anyway?
Continue reading “How to Implement Lean Manufacturing: Straighten and See (5S) – Part 2”
I was at a client yesterday whose managers had recently attended a lean seminar that had left them unsatisfied. During our discussion, the production manager asked if lean really helped with the problems that were most impacting his company. In particular, he mentioned the challenges that the company faced with respect to some of its vendors. Given that vendor performance was, for the most part, out of the company’s control and given that vendor performance had a direct and substantial impact on his performance as production manager, how was lean going to help him?
You’ve finished with the Sort and Shine across your plant (or nearly so). You’ve been working for awhile and the plant looks a lot better doesn’t it? Just as important, you’re finding that it’s being sustained pretty well. A few glitches here and there and, gosh knows, you’ve needed to stay on top of things, but overall the picture is good.
Congratulations…but now comes the harder phase: Straighten and See. It’s not that this phase is any harder, per se, to carry out than the first one was. It’s just that there’s more to it. The first phase was Sort…then Shine. This phase is…find a place for everything (and that might mean buying or fabricating places to put some things) including the stuff that moves through the area like work in process , mark and label the place where you put it, implement other visuals like communications boards, schedule boards, metrics boards, and develop all the procedures for making sure the right stuff is in the right place at the right time. See what I mean? There’s more to it. So, we’d better get started.
Continue reading “How to Implement Lean Manufacturing: Straighten and See (5S) – Part 1”
That’s how many companies that start a lean initiative will seen any positive results from it, according to a survey conducted by Industry Week back in 2007. Just one in fifty….2%.
I was just reading an article in Bloomberg Businessweek (Nestle Tries a Different Recipe For Lean Cuisine…it doesn’t seem to be on the website yet).
Here’s a line from the article:
A $50M innovation center opening July 22 in Solon, OH should let Nestle try recipes faster.
I’m posting this because it illustrates the primary value of lean methods and tools: shorter cycle times. Notice that the quote says nothing about developing recipes more cheaply. It’s “faster”. Nestle will be able to get more products into the market in a given time period. And it’s willing to spend $50M to do it. That’s a decidedly strategic amount of money from which, Nestle hopes, it gets a decided strategic advantage.
Now, I don’t know if any of the money has been spent on mapping and improving the actual recipe development process. One hopes so. Spending money on capital isn’t “lean” per se, while process improvement is.
In any case, Nestle recognizes what many allegedly “lean companies” too often don’t: it’s not about reducing costs or “getting more efficient”. It’s about increasing strategic capacity.