This is an original article from the NIST Manufacturing Innovation Blog.
The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) defines people-centric leadership (PCL) as a leadership approach that seeks to create a culture in which everyone is encouraged to improve and apply their talents and given the opportunity to pursue excellence at work every day.
This article will focus on technology as well as Training Within Industry - Job Instruction (TWI-JI) module to capture standardized work.
The challenge: The onboarding process is challenging. The primary reason is two-fold.
First, if tasks are documented, they are usually written and describe the steps in the process. However, the onboarding process is much more than tasks. It involves a logical format that often uses more sensory input to be successful (e.g. vision or audio). Only, providing a written document for training has limited effectiveness as it does not consider all sensory input. Different individuals capture knowledge differently. Providing multiple methods or considering different sensory inputs will provide a more effective educational session.
The global response to the Coronavirus has impacted all of us. The need for continuous improvement persists, and one may argue is even more important during challenging times. How can we use lean tools during this time?
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” — William Arthur Ward.
Maintaining adequate cash flow is a major factor when operating a healthy business in times of growth and prosperity. During tough times it takes on an amplified role. The fundamentals of collecting on receivables, reducing expenses, reducing inventory investment, and the like are still in play, but these and different strategies need to be examined in difficult economic times.
It is no secret that manufacturers play a critical role in the state’s economy. Manufacturing alone contributes the largest amount per industry to the state’s output with 12% Gross State product. It is the state’s powerhouse industry that is responsible for 93% of its exports, pays $52 billion in wages and benefits to 592,000 people – that’s about 9.2% of the state’s workforce.
Fuss and O’Neill Manufacturing Solutions provides mentoring, training, and engineering services for industrial and municipal clients to help them achieve safer, more cost effective productivity. In a recent interview with Larry Bouvier, Vice President and Partner at Fuss & O’Neill, IMEC got a deeper look into how they work with manufacturers and set themselves apart from the competition – one of many reasons they are one of IMEC’s top Third Party Resource partners.
This is an original article written by Tim Crosby, Communication and Marketing Strategist.
The latest batch of incoming students, along with the upper classmen, will again demonstrate this approach next week when they help a company reorganize part of its Chicago-area facility to improve efficiency and profitability.
What can you accomplish with the time saved on machine or product setup? A quick changeover plan or Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) is a lean manufacturing technique intended to improve process efficiencies. Let’s take a look at how quick changeover is applied on the racetrack.
Written by Roger Shrum, IMEC Regional Manager
In my work with manufacturers, I’ll encounter leaders who are frustrated with the slow pace of implementation of their continuous improvement programs. They are concerned that they are not seeing the payback they were hoping for. What I share with them is sometimes unsettling: Many enterprise-wide lean deployment programs become stalled because the top manager in the company has not clearly articulated his/her personal vision and committed to making it successful.
In one example, a company I was advising faced chronic late delivery problems, which jeopardized its reputation with longstanding customers and opened the door for its competitors to take business away. The company was forced to work significant overtime and expedite production just to stay in the game. This company had a history of waiting for a downturn in business to shore up its delivery performance. Along the way, they “dabbled” in implementing lean methods, but as orders increased, a full lean implementation was shelved. In retrospect, these well-meaning, busy leaders now realize that they may have missed an opportunity for significant growth by not positioning the company to adequately meet customer needs during the upside of the cycle.
Written by Scott Czysz, IMEC Technical Specialist
Over the last couple months, I've observed a recurring theme with a few of the companies I am working with: a frustration with "them" (co-workers, factory workers, etc.) not doing what they are supposed to be doing. As I dig deeper, I have found the problem lies within:
