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