Little's Law explained
Conceptually, Little's Law can be understood by considering a water tank into which water is added at the exact same rate that water is removed so that the water can be maintained at a constant level. A more full tank will have more water molecules – more WIP Inventory – than a less full tank, and if both tanks have the same flow rate the molecules in the more full tank will, on average, stay in the tank for a longer period of time than those in the tank with the lower level. …
"Learning to See" Beyond the Shop Floor
A facility cannot be improved from the conference table. It requires you to go out onto the shop floor and observe the work, asking questions to ensure your understanding. You may be surprised why some things are done. It may be because someone learned a method that was made obsolete by technology but no one asked him to stop. It may be because an employee learned a method from a coworker, much like someone would in a craft guild. …
Metrics
An early step in a good Lean program is implementation of visual metrics for decision making purposes. Lead Time and Throughput are the most direct and have the most impact on profit. Operating Expense – all labor and other material – is more difficult to make visual, but can be by highlighted in posted suggestion system results.
The value of lead time improvement is more easily understood by most employees than the value of reducing …
Benefits of Cellular Layout
Toyota, which has been perfecting Lean for 50 years, organizes its production areas into U-shaped “Cells which offer several advantages:
- Part travel distances are as short as possible, with no need to move the completed WIP of one activity to the incoming queue area for the next activity; they are the same. In many cases the part moves directly from one workstation to the next one, without resting between them. …
How will I know when my lean "journey" is complete?
People often ask us how they will know they will be "done" with Lean. We tell them Lean will never be complete; that each improvement locked in by the use of Standard Operations will probably be replaced with a better method at some point in the future. What we can do is offer the person a glimpse of what if may be like to work there at some point in the future should they implement Lean.…
Look Only at Your Income Statement to Define Lean Six Sigma Success
Organizations implement process improvement programs for many reasons, some of which have nothing to do with improving financial returns to the stakeholders. Further, once a methodology is rojects, or the amount of savings attributable to the program. Those that get it right, however, measure effectiveness by the only yardstick that matters financial statement performance. Once the financial needs of the organization are established, project selection should be driven by impact on customers. Project ideas should come from the bottom-‐up, be selected based on objective criteria, and compete within the organization for resources.
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