In the business world, there is a constant need and desire for improvement. It doesn’t matter whether a business specializes in the market of rare auto parts or in making the best enchiladas. The plain and simple truth is that improving business practices to meet the ever-changing and diverse needs of society is essential to the success of any business endeavor. However, with all this change and…
Mike Wilson | March 26, 2013 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
When you enter a place of business, who do you expect to interact with? An employee or one of the actual business leaders? For most of us, we expect to work with a trained employee who is essentially a representative of the company. It would be somewhat odd to walk up to the check-out lane at a large commercialized grocery store and have the actual business owner…
Mike Wilson | March 20, 2013 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
When discussing the term “metrics” or “performance metrics,”we are referring to the approaches businesses take to gauge or measure performance. Metrics are often used to determine whether a company is or isn’t making its objectives and goals and often serves as a platform to identify areas in need of improvement. However, it is important to remember that the results of metrics are not the one and only…
Mike Wilson | March 7, 2013 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
These days you may be hearing a lot talk regarding “going lean” and “implementing lean practices,” what does this truly mean? When a company implements lean practices they are essentially looking at all areas within the company, evaluating processes, searching for new ways to streamline and improve current processes, all while striving to create a better and more efficient product or service. Even though the implementation of…
Mike Wilson | March 5, 2013 | Lean | Lean
Let’s face it, there are many situations in which products are used either incorrectly or just simply don’t meet an intended need appropriately. Would you agree that this is due to an operator (customer) error? Or do you believe it is due to a process defect or product discrepancy? All too many times, operators are blamed for errors in products that are not really their faults. In…
Mike Wilson | March 4, 2013 | Lean | Lean
For those of you who have not experienced the splendor of IKEA, right now is a great time to learn some helpful and effective facts regarding their lean tactics and safety style. IKEA is a Dutch-based retail company that originated in Sweden back in 1943. Through the years IKEA has proven itself to be one of the largest and most efficient ready-to-assemble furniture and home décor stores…
Mike Wilson | February 21, 2013 | Lean, Safety Solutions | Continuous Improvement, Lean
Six sigma is an innovative way of operating that incorporates a set of strategies that aim to improve the processes conducted within a business. It was originally developed in the early 1980’s and has been a well-received tactic to help save businesses valuable time and money as well as improve processes and overall production tremendously. Many businesses actually seek out employees who have been trained in the…
Mike Wilson | February 20, 2013 | Lean | Lean, Six Sigma
Six Sigma has been around in the U.S. since the mid 1980’s and was originally developed and implemented by the Motorola Company. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with six sigma, it is essentially a set of strategies and tools that are implemented to enhance processes conducted within a business or organization. Six sigma was first developed to assist within the manufacturing realm of businesses…
Mike Wilson | February 18, 2013 | Lean | Lean, Six Sigma
The control of important documents in today’s workplace continues to be a struggle despite the incorporation of the ISO 9001:2000 requirements. To clarify document control, it can be described as ensuring that current documents are first approved by qualified personnel and then distributed to the areas or places where they are actually used and that old or redundant information is then removed. What does the ISO 9001:2000…
Mike Wilson | February 11, 2013 | Lean | Lean
When most people think about performance improvement, they often think of things such as customer satisfaction or continuous improvement models. It is true that both of these components are important to the overall success of a business. However, the most significant revision within the ISO 9001 is calling for a requirement of quality objectives. If you think about it, objectives are a HUGE part of how a…
Mike Wilson | February 8, 2013 | Lean | Continuous Improvement, Lean
The world of health care is always changing and rightfully so with all the changes in the business world why would health care remain the same? However, despite some long-practiced, tried and true methods of assessing health care quality such as Donabedian’s structures method which focuses on processes and outcomes as well as the inception of the continuous improvement model and the balanced scorecard method the professionals…
Mike Wilson | February 7, 2013 | Safety Solutions | Continuous Improvement, Healthcare, Lean
There is US organization that continues to raise the bar through one-of-a-kind customer service, excellent dedication to continuous improvement and boundless levels of fun… do you know who we are talking about? Disney of course! Walt Disney World has been a longstanding innovator when it comes to solid business standards. Employees are happy and satisfied, customers are elated with their visits to the Disney parks and business…
Mike Wilson | January 29, 2013 | Lean | Lean
Have you been searching for a way to revamp your business goals, boost employee involvement and work towards continuous improvement? If so, the hoshin process may be what you have been looking for. The origination of the hoshin process started back around 1976 at Hewlett-Packard within the Japan location. The name hoshin can be interpreted to mean direction management and daily (fundamental) management. The main goal of…
Mike Wilson | January 25, 2013 | Lean | Hoshin, Lean
Lean manufacturing is a method used in factories to enhance productivity. As part of lean manufacturing, 5S strategies are quite common sense and you would expect the posters to be easily accepted in an organization. However, it is not that easy to change working habits. As a result, factory managers may decide to use lean posters to make the employees understand the need for lean practices. What is 5S?…
Mike Wilson | January 15, 2013 | Lean | Lean, Lean Posters
Since the starting of the industrial age, companies are continuously putting all their efforts to get the best ways to improve their overall production method whilst guaranteeing the incomparable quality for their products. Hence, in order to make companies achieve best methods to improve their production quality, the concept of Muri, Muda, and Mura introduced. These concepts brought various fruitful results for all those companies which follow…
Mike Wilson | January 2, 2013 | Lean | Lean, Muda, Mura, Muri
