Six Sigma Manufacturing : Waste Reduction and Process Enhancements
Are you familiar about the Six Sigma manufacturing system? In actuality, this is a very well known method used by many businesses or companies in order to enhance their productivity. It is a very vital strategy which is why a lot of companies are resorting to this method in order to obtain positive results when…
Mike Wilson | October 8, 2012 | Lean | Lean, Lean Manufacturing
Lean Manufacturing Training : Key to Many Opportunities
The lean manufacturing system is a being employed in a great number of companies these days. But then, this is not a new thing at all since it has been in existence for more than two decades. Due to its reported success, this system has been adopted by many corporations hoping to obtain the same…
Mike Wilson | October 4, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean Manufacturing
Does Lean Mean “Easy and Simple”?
Mark Hamel’s Gemba Tales blog is one website to which I continually return. Hamel is an accomplished fellow, and that comes through in his writing. Without sounding haughty or pompous, Hamel can throw real-world examples into his posts, and the reader will come away with something they didn’t know before. So, when he was writing…
Mike Wilson | October 2, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Gemba, Lean
Caine’s Arcade : An Example of Lean?
I love this video – you may have seen it already when it was an initial viral hit, but I ask that you watch it again from a lean perspective. It’s about a plucky little boy who uses his energy and ingenuity to build a dream from nothing but old boxes and tape. I like…
Mike Wilson | September 28, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
Which Way to Turn on the Lean Road?
You hop in your car and get moving. You’ve got to get from Boston to New York, but your car is on fire. You haven’t had a drink of water in two days, and your fuel gauge is low. Oh, and where is your roadmap? Sounds like a fun trip, doesn’t it? So, which problem…
Mike Wilson | September 25, 2012 | Lean | 5S, Kaizen, Kanban, Lean Manufacturing
One Piece Flow Manufacturing and Production Video
Ron Pereira over at the LSSAcademy.com offered a really cool video that pits regular mass production vs. one piece flow, and his simulation produced a time savings with the one piece flow. In his video, what I found to be as interesting as his presented material were the comments at the bottom by professionals in…
Mike Wilson | September 25, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
An Overview on Six Sigma Technique
Six Sigma is a technique of improving the output and performance of a process by identifying and eliminating causes of defects and ultimately finding the new methods to develop the process. The main hindrances to a quality process are the root causes behind all the defects which lead to wastage and low quality output. Six…
Mike Wilson | September 21, 2012 | Lean | Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma
Practicing Lean Manufacturing to Optimize Resource Utilization
Optimum utilization of the available resource is a key goal in all organizations. The main objective is to ensure each and every available resource is channeled towards adding value to the set processes in order to improve the productivity of the organization. Lean manufacturing is geared towards this and its basic tenets include the need…
Mike Wilson | September 19, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean Manufacturing
Lean Manufacturing for the Monkeys?
I had an amusing read this morning. A young Seth Godin acolyte named Luke Rumley wrote an article titled “Lean vs. growth” on his blog last week, stepping on some thin ice regarding his views on Lean. Almost immediately, Rumley inadvertently provoked the online lean gods, who sent down efficient thunder and waste-free lightning via…
Mike Wilson | September 17, 2012 | Lean | Lean Manufacturing
Is Lean Too Elitist?
The Lean Edge, a website which touts itself as a “dialogue between business leaders and lean authors” offers some neat perspectives of lean, and inspired me to write an article about a post by Tracey Richardson. She talks about the lean term, nemawashi, which she says means “prepping the soil” or “digging around the roots” in…
Mike Wilson | September 12, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean Manufacturing
What’s In It For YOU To Go Lean?
Jon Wetzel, at the Lean for Everyone blog gives some ideas on how to get everybody interested in implementing lean into their workplace by making it affecting them personally. “WIIFM” or “What’s In It For Me” is the basis for much of what people do both consciously and subconsciously. As lean trainers we need to…
Mike Wilson | September 11, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean, Lean Manufacturing
Continuous Improvement: 3 Tips For Getting Management On-Board
Ron Pereira, of LSS Academy wrote a recent post titled “3 Things You Can Do When Your Manager Doesn’t Support Continuous Improvement,” and I like his proactive attitude. Face it, sometimes, your “higher-ups” don’t always back your ideas. They may have several reason for this: maybe they don’t want you to steal their thunder, or…
Mike Wilson | September 10, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean Manufacturing
Respect for People and Continuous Improvement = Lean
On Joe Dager’s Lean-based website, Business901.com, he and David Veech of The Lean Way produced a podcast in which they conversed about the two “over-arching drivers” that should be inherent in any successful lean implementation: respect for people and continuous improvement. In the podcast, Veech makes the point that the technicality of continuous improvement and…
Mike Wilson | September 7, 2012 | Lean | Lean, Lean Manufacturing
3 Tips to Help Develop a Strong Lean Culture in Your Workplace
Attempting to implement and sustain any new plan, including Lean, in a factory or even an office can meet a lot of resistance or bitterness, depending on the climate of your work environment and the attitudes of your employees or coworkers. Management almost always needs to be involved and educated on both the production processes…
Mike Wilson | September 4, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Kaizen, Lean Culture, Lean Manufacturing
Get Lean with Pizza?
Some of the folks over at the Lean Forums were expressing their need for value stream mapping (vsm) simulation games, so lean consultant and author, Bob Petruska, explained the “Pizza Game” which he plays with his Schwan coworkers (he uses this analogy because one of the Schwan plants makes frozen pizzas). According to Petruska, they…
Mike Wilson | August 29, 2012 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean Manufacturing
