Your organization cannot operate efficiently in silos. In an unstoppable organization, your people, processes, and platforms all work to support one another.

This simple statement gets lost in countless organizations but always needs to be part of the ongoing improvement conversation.

I often order things online that require assembly. And most of the time, the assembly instructions are frustrating and laughable. I end up spreading all the pieces on the floor and attacking assembly like a jigsaw puzzle.

We spend a lot of time talking about Continuous Improvement and there are patterns that show up time and again. So much so, that I wanted to take some time to share with you and to help further the understanding to a higher level.

One of the things I love most about working in Manufacturing is seeing all of the creative ways people and companies find to measure processes and performance. I believe in the old saying that “Everything that can be measured doesn’t count, and everything that counts can’t be measured” which points to the human side of the company.

I was recently reading through the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) forum and came across a thread titled “What is Lean Six Sigma?” The person who started the thread posted the question with what they have come to understand to be the meaning of Lean Six Sigma. They started with a few definitions of lean straight from both the Urban dictionary (which is way out of context to this discussion, but still funny to read), and the free dictionary version of Lean. This person took the traditional version of lean, which is basically “less fatty” and tied it to Lean Six Sigma. They defined Lean Six Sigma as “Six Sigma without the fat”. To be honest, I love this definition, but I want to take it a bit further and give my spin on what Lean Six Sigma means.

A few weeks ago, I was faced with the daunting task of moving across the United States with my family of four, two cats, a litter box, and everything we own in our Toyota Sienna minivan.

One of the founding principles of Lean is the question between what "adds value" to a process and what doesn't. As explained in our Lean Primer series video (https://youtu.be/xAeDzukRMPg), for a process/step to be “value add”, it must meet the following three requirements:

Last week, Supply Chain Now Radio hosted The Effective Syndicate President and Founder, Beau Groover, as he presented the webinar, "Lead the People - Manage the Process." If you missed the live webinar, you can view it here:

I recently posted a video clip from “The Karate Kid.” In the post, I spoke about the scene from the movie where Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel to either “Karate do yes” or “Karate do no.” He describes a half-hearted effort in karate as being the same as walking in the middle of the road. At some point you will be squished like a grape. A discussion about this scene with colleagues led to the realization that Lean and Continuous Improvement are very much the same way. You either need to do them with 100% commitment, or not do them at all. In this post, I will dive into some of the expectations that tend to become a pitfall for many companies starting their lean journey. I also want to cover the reality of a Lean Journey and what to expect when considering it for your situation.

Following WWII, Japan needed a spark to ignite its economy. They looked to the successes of the U.S. and Ford’s production line. The shortcoming that they found was that the labor conditions were not suitable for a war-torn country. They needed something that would inspire and empower the workforce. They accomplished this primarily through a practice known as a "quality circle.” The output from the quality circle was two-fold: a production problem would be solved, but more importantly, the employees in the quality circle would develop critical problem-solving skills. This mentality created a culture within Toyota that would start a revolutionary way of thinking. We now use terms such as Lean, or Continuous Improvement to describe the efforts and methodologies of the Toyota Production System.

https://dilbert.com/

How many times have you heard this kind of comment from friends, colleagues, and business acquaintances- “I just hired a Consultant, and they are the worst ever!” I would guess more than once, right?

While there’s no question that many so-called ”lean consultants” or ”lean experts” have a less than stellar reputation and deserve it, not paying attention or being sloppy when hiring a lean consultant partner will likely result in less than desired improvements, sometimes even worse results, and mutual frustration - no matter how good or bad the lean partner is.

So, what should you look for in a Lean Consultant to avoid all of the hassles?

I wish I had a well thought out, highly educated, straightforward, one-size-fits-all, Jedi-master level answer to that question, young padawan, but there isn’t one. And, that’s because: It depends!

How do manufacturing companies define success? Although that is a loaded question with many possible answers, I want to focus on the productivity side of manufacturing. Manufacturing companies live and die by productivity rates. In this article, we will be focusing on Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or OEE, the three factors that drive this metric, the common bottlenecks associated with each factor, and some basic tools to deal with these bottlenecks.

OEE is a common measurement term used in manufacturing. It calculates a percentage that can be used to gauge a factories pulse, and can be used to identify opportunities for improvement if used correctly. To determine a factories OEE, you first need to determine these three factors:

So you’ve decided to bring in a consultant to provide particular expertise, help you solve a particularly thorny problem, or simply manage a project you don’t have time for. But are you effectively using all the resources that your consultant brings to the engagement?

We have heard clients complain that “If I don’t ask exactly the right question in exactly the right way, I don’t really get the real answer. The consultant answers my question directly, but doesn’t really fulfill my need for information.” Good consultants give you answers to your direct questions; great consultants probe deeper to understand your true information needs - even the ones you didn’t know you needed!

A good consultant will make good on the deliverables spelled out in your contract. A great consultant strives to deliver additional value above and beyond the scope statement and that includes providing resources that you may not have considered.