Striving For Perfection Is The Essence Of Lean Thinking!
Perfection in lean terms means the total elimination of waste in an enterprise so that all activities in a value stream create value. What makes striving for perfection so difficult for most of us is that we live and work in the short term whereas perfection only seems plausible in the long term. There are two paths to perfection, an incremental path, kaizen, and a radical path, kaikaku....
Read MoreIs Too Much Motion Tiring You Out?
Masaaki Imai in his book, Gemba Kaizen, A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management, states that any motion of a person’s body not directly related to adding value is unproductive. Some examples of motion waste include: Searching for jigs, fixtures, tools, files, etc. Bending to lift heavy loads Turning to retrieve or dispose of products Reaching for components and...
Read MoreHow Variation In Work Environment Can Affect Productivity and Create Problems
We seldom think of our environment as being a detriment to our job. But work environment can have a larger affect on your productivity and can create problems that lead to errors, defects, and costly rework. Mother nature and environment can have a dramatic effect on the products we produce and the services we provide. Some of the obvious factors include humidity, excessive heat, cleanliness,...
Read MoreMaterial Issues Create Huge Losses!
Material problems wreak havoc in many operations. Inconsistencies and variation within a lot or between lots of material can cause operators to constantly tweak machines and processes, which in turn can lead to defects and high scrap rates. Having multiple suppliers for the same material creates variability and can cause production delays, especially if the change from one supplier to another...
Read MoreKaizen – A Slow Steady Approach to Continuous Improvement
Shutterstock Illustration Kaizen is a commonsense, low-cost approach to continuous improvement. It is ideal for projects that are short in duration and attack a specific, known problem that is physically observable. Making small improvements is also much easier for employees to accept and since the projects are small in duration and the results can be seen almost immediately. A few years...
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