Six Sigma

Interview With 5S and Six Sigma Expert Brion Hurley

Creative Safety Supply was honored to have the opportunity to interview a Lean manufacturing expert. In this interview, Andrew McCall of Creative Safety Supply talks to Brion Hurley of Business Performance Improvement about the concept of 5S and its implementation in businesses. Brian discusses the eight wastes of Lean, emphasizing inventory as a commonly overlooked waste. He explains that while inventory is necessary for operations, it also…

CSS Editorial Staff | June 5, 2023 | 5S, Lean, Training | 5S, Facility Efficiency, Lean, Lean Culture, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma

A Conversation on How to be an Effective Safety Professional

An interesting post was recently made by Doug Thompson in the EHSQ Elite Safety Group on LinkedIn, which prompted quite a thought provoking discussion. Mr. Thompson is a student at Columbia Southern University, and he titled his post, “Advice on how to be an effective safety professional.” He then wrote just one simple sentence, which was, “I am requesting “any positive” tips, tricks, insight, lessons learned, on…

Tony Ferraro | January 18, 2017 | Safety Solutions | 5S, Safety, Six Sigma

Kaikaku – What Is It?

Kaikaku is Japanese word that means ‘radical change.’ It is also a business concept that looks at the idea of making radical changes in order to achieve significant improvements. Some people compare it to the Kaizen system, but that is a mistake. While both are options for making changes to a business practice, Kaizen is focused on small, incremental changes. Compare that with Kaikaku, which is for…

Tony Ferraro | July 21, 2016 | Lean | Facility Efficiency, Kaikaku, Kaizen, Six Sigma

How to Become Six Sigma

Attaining any level of Six Sigma certification is a significant accomplishment, and one that can help you to advance in your career. Many positions in companies require that you have at least a certain level belt in order to qualify, and others list it as an accomplishment that is highly recommended. No matter how much Six Sigma education or experience you currently have, it is good to…

Tony Ferraro | June 17, 2016 | Lean | Six Sigma

Finding the Root Cause With the Five Whys

The “Five Why’s” is a technique that is often used within the Six Sigma methodology to help learn more about a situation and gain valuable information about what is going on. While the strategy is called the Five Why’s, it doesn’t actually have to be exactly five. In some situations, fewer are needed and in others more may be necessary. Why the Five Why’s? The Five Why’s…

Tony Ferraro | May 12, 2016 | Lean | 5S, Five whys, Safety, Six Sigma

5 Tips to Improve the Elimination of Waste

Elimination of Waste Whether you are implementing a specific program like Lean or 5S to help improve efficiency or you are just looking for a way to eliminate waste in your facility, it is a good idea to look at what has worked for other companies in the past. Fortunately, there is a lot of data and stories from all sorts of companies that have been gathered…

Tony Ferraro | March 2, 2016 | 5S | 5S, Facility Efficiency, Facility Marking, Floor Marking, Forklift Safety, Lean Manufacturing, Organized Workplace, Regulations & Compliance, Safety Signs, Six Sigma, Valve Tags

Kaizen Continuous Improvement – Ten Tips

Ten Tips to Help You with Your Kaizen Continuous Improvement Strategy The Kaizen methodology encourages ongoing efforts to ensure continuous improvement throughout a facility. This improvement can come in many forms including waste elimination, improved efficiency, safer work environments, and much more. Simply say that a facility is employing Kaizen strategies, is essentially meaningless if you don’t have any concrete action items you are following. Whether you’re…

Tony Ferraro | September 21, 2015 | Kaizen | 5S, 6S, Continuous Improvement, Facility Efficiency, Kaizen, Six Sigma

Seven Simple & Effective Manufacturing Safety Tips

Manufacturing facilities are an essential part of the global economy, but they are also one of the more dangerous places of employment. While there have been significant manufacturing safety improvements over the past several decades, many facilities still have a long way to go. Unfortunately, many facilities believe that it would be too costly or time consuming to significantly improve the safety of their facility. The fact…

Tony Ferraro | July 10, 2015 | Lean, Safety Solutions | 5S, Lean, Lean Manufacturing, OSHA, Regulations & Compliance, Safety, Safety Signs, Six Sigma

Lean vs Automation

Lean and Automation Working Together As production has advanced over the years, the techniques and technology we have at our fingertips to improve the speed and efficiency of the things we do have increased tenfold. On the one hand, a new and deeper understanding of lead times and how various elements of production affect each other have led to a better understanding of how we can eliminate…

Tony Ferraro | January 2, 2015 | Lean | Lean, Robots, Six Sigma

Value Stream Mapping Techniques

Tips For Ensuring Value Stream Mapping Success Value stream mapping, or VSM, is a process that allows you to get an overall picture of the flow of production on virtually any scale – from an individual work station all the way to the overall flow of your entire business and/or production line. What’s more, regardless of the scale, when done correctly value stream mapping allows you to…

Tony Ferraro | December 23, 2014 | Value Stream | Six Sigma, Value Stream, Value Stream Mapping

Eliminating Waste using these 5 Steps

Eliminating Waste in the Workplace Waste is a productivity killer. Physical waste gets in the way of your workers and takes up space that could be allocated toward other production activities. And that’s just physical. Waste also comes in a number of different forms that might be outside of the scope of our colloquial, layman’s definition. The elimination of waste can create a safer and more efficient…

Tony Ferraro | December 17, 2014 | 5S | Lean Manufacturing, Safety, Six Sigma

Lean Efforts – To What Extent Should We Quantify?

Should We Quantify All KAIZEN/Lean Efforts from the Shop Floor? Ben Huang, a professional in the midst of implementing Lean techniques into his workplace, has a dilemma. As he related on a LinkedIn group this past week, Lean is apparently going well in his business, but he’s unsure of the extent to which he should be documenting and measuring the process. On the one hand, even small…

Tony Ferraro | December 1, 2014 | Lean | Gemba, Kaizen, Lean, Six Sigma

Obeya – Introducing the Lean War Room

You Must Obeya Welcome to today’s dose of Lean, on the agenda is Obeya. If you haven’t heard of Obeya, you might still have used it, or you may know about the concept but never have put it into action. In any event, it’s best to know and to act, and that’s exactly what we’re going to focus on today with this Lean planning concept. Obeya, coming from the…

Tony Ferraro | November 7, 2014 | Lean | Facility Efficiency, Lean, Lean Manufacturing, Obeya, Organized Workplace, Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma – Quick Wins and Momentum

How do you define a “Quick Win” in Lean Six Sigma? Lean Six Sigma improvement efforts are often long, complex, and require a lot of investment from multiple parties and groups within a system. All of these aspects make such efforts especially susceptible to a loss of support and, as a result, sometimes complete failure or shutdown as well. Now, what individuals choose to do with this…

Tony Ferraro | November 6, 2014 | Lean | Six Sigma

Improve Productivity – An exploration from Macro to Micro

Ready to Improve Productivity? The word “productivity” is pervasive in the business world to a fault. Sometimes, we even manage ourselves into tricky situations or troublesome employee relations for the sake of productivity, largely because we were wearing metaphorical blinders in our pursuit of it, letting other important considerations fall by the wayside. Another common issue is a misunderstanding of productivity. While its dictionary definition is simple…

Tony Ferraro | October 31, 2014 | Lean | Six Sigma