Posted on Mon, Aug 16, 2010
Readers of the previous Operational Excellence Insights “Are You Improving or Counting” most likely saw an error immediately upon reading the headline. (The letter “n” was substituted for “m” in the word “Improving”.) After all, it wasn’t too difficult to notice the misspelled word. Seeing this, initial thoughts were probably along the lines of:
How could these process excellence professionals do this? Don’t they proofread? That must be embarrassing. I wonder if anyone else noticed. Don’t they use spell check? I wonder how that happened. Who’s at fault? I’m curious if they’ll identify and eliminate root cause(s).
As readers of Operational Excellence Insights, each of you is a customer of these articles and as such our offering last week failed to meet your requirements (or ours). In our never-ending pursuit of excellence this provided a valuable opportunity to investigate the process, implement improvements, and most importantly, practice what we preach as Lean Six Sigma consultants.
It is unlikely that many people would consider the question in the list above addressing root cause. Normally, the initial reaction is more focused on “who’s at fault.” Being customers of products and services throughout our business and personal lives, we frequently encounter defects or levels of quality that are less than desired.
When such situations arise, we typically are content with receiving credit or some other allowance, none of which has anything to do with getting to the root cause and eliminating it.
Read the full article "Who Is Responsible?"
Posted on Mon, May 10, 2010
In this week's Operational Excellence Insight, Lean Consultant Mike Donovan writes about the appropriate use of ERP in a Lean Manufacturing Enterprise. Mike points out some of the problems with ERP/MRP as a shop floor control execution tool although he strongly support ERP for other business purposes.
The value of ERP in manufacturing has long been a subject of debate. The anti-computer crowd tends to be those narrowly and totally focused on Lean Enterprise techniques such as Kanban, one piece flow, and building to customer demand among other applications from the tool box for creating a Lean Supply Chain. The extremists in that camp preach that ERP is totally non-value added and it should be eliminated. This is not a very informed view point.
Clearly, there are some logic problems in ERP systems especially in scheduling functionality that is driven by fixed lead times, predetermined queue times and backward planning to create schedules for execution. Furthermore, many ERP advocates are not aware that the scheduling of dependent demand with MRP shop floor control logic is more or less illogical once orders are released...
Click to read the Full Article
Posted on Wed, Jan 06, 2010
Over the holidays I attended a party and found myself in a discussion with another guest. Over a cold, adult beverage we traded the typical small talk about jobs and responsibilities. After explaining that I was a Lean consultant and what that meant, my new acquaintance said (jokingly), "Oh, so you are one of those guys who's shipping jobs to low wage countries".
I explained that in reality our work has saved thousands of jobs in North America by eliminating the wasteful content that encourages some companies to simply move to low cost regions. I don't think the guy meant any offense but, the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.
I firmly believe that Lean and Six Sigma have kept and created jobs. Furthermore, consumers can buy higher quality products at lower prices as a result of the improvements in manufacturing that these technologies have provided.
But that's just me... What do you think? Are the economies of North America stronger or weaker as a result of Lean and Six Sigma? Do these technologies create net employment or reduce it? Please add your comments.
Posted on Tue, Nov 10, 2009
The concepts of Lean have been formally studied (outside of Japan) for twenty years - and far more if you include early versions of the technology dating all the way back to some of the concepts of Henry Ford. What will happen next?
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The fundamentals of Lean never change and good organizations will continuously apply them to achieve higher and higher levels of performance.
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The principles of Lean will evolve as new technologies and business tools develop
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Like all business improvement methodologies Lean will eventually be replaced by a new approach.
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Something else
We have our strong opinion - but what is yours? Share your thoughts by commenting on this blog and check back for the discussion.