In part one of this series, we discussed the importance of the Gemba walk and how well executed and thought out Gemba Walks can drive sustained Continuous Improvement. Great Gemba Walks become a focused process whereby leadership engages with various parts of the organization to observe, learn, and provide support to meet organizational goals and objectives and more importantly, the needs of its customers. Leadership is observing, learning, and engaging where value is being created, and teaching the team members to be problem solvers to achieve continuous improvement.

An original article from the NIST Manufacturing Innovation Blog.

The lean manufacturing movement came out of a desire to reduce waste and inefficiencies and improve productivity in the operation. Many manufacturers have also benefited from the resulting continuous improvement mindset as engaged employees became empowered to change things for the better.

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.

Doran Scales Inc.  |  20 employees  |  www.doranscales.com

Doran Scales is a digital scale manufacturer located in St. Charles, Illinois.

SITUATION

As competition began to grow and internal processes became more cluttered, Doran Scales faced the realization that they could no longer operate as an “80’s” manufacturing company – living off of high profits, consistent customers, and minimal demand for quality products. Mark Podl, CEO, knew the operation needed significant improvement and by starting with the shop floor operations he could begin the transformation to an up-to-date, lean and quality-minded, 21^st century organization.

SOLUTION

Mark first engaged IMEC in setting the framework for how they would approach and prioritize the many improvements through education on the fundamentals of lean manufacturing. By then identifying the need for a shop floor “clean-up,” the Doran Scales team alongside IMEC laid out a plan for an improvement to the physical plant layout through several Kaizen events. By streamlining manufacturing processes and organizing tools and people in a more efficient flow, the team was able to kick start the journey to lean – each individual owning their incremental improvements and committing to the new way of working. “Pushing past the initial stigma of needing to be ‘fixed’ was difficult for some,” said Podl, “but having the guidance of individuals [IMEC] with experience has been extremely helpful. They provided us with the support we needed to get from point A to point B.”

Written by Rick Winkler, IMEC Technical Specialist 

Throughout my 20+year journey with continuous improvement, I’ve helped individuals experience a wide array of necessary “tools” for executing lean continuous improvement (CI). But none are perhaps more integral for success than standard work.

Standard work is likely the most powerful—but least used—lean tool available for individuals and organizations hoping to make change and inspire efficiency improvements. By documenting the current best practice, standard work creates the baseline for kaizen or continuous improvement events. It is important to understand that the baseline standard created initially is expected to be improved upon (hence continuous improvement); the new standard becomes the baseline for further improvements, and on and on.

Advantage Components, Inc.  |  60 employees  |  www.aciwires.com

ACi is a contract cable and wire harness manufacturer located in Joliet, Illinois.

SITUATION

In early 2014, Advantage Components, Inc. (ACi) began to see exponential growth in sales and subsequent production. But with space constrained in their current facility, the company knew it was time to make room in the existing facility or expand beyond their four walls. ACi leadership, had previous experience working with the principles of lean manufacturing and were interested in committing to increasing efficiencies in the current space before committing to a new facility. Through a quick online search of experts in the field of lean, ACi discovered IMEC.

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:

• Poorly designed (or never designed) processes,
• Poor or no process documentation,
• Poor or no training for the people that are doing the process every day, and, not surprisingly,
• Poor results.

Written by Lawrence Bouvier, CMRP, Vice President – Fuss & O’Neill Manufacturing Solutions

Is equipment downtime holding you back from achieving Lean Manufacturing success?

We all have heard of the seven wastes addressed in Lean Manufacturing, but did you ever consider that if you applied similar principles to equipment health, you’d want a discipline to create Lean Maintenance?

Overproduction, Inventory and Waiting are three of the seven lean wastes that can come as a result of equipment failures.  A good maintenance process will keep these to minimum levels.  So, how can we achieve this?  The only way is to minimize the amount of maintenance and repair that we perform on machines!

Written by Anthony Manos, Lean Champion with 5S Supply

The Very Best of 5S

Want to know how your organization stacks up?

This in-depth benchmarking report looks at techniques, practices and principles for 5S Workplace Organization and Standardization. It sheds light on how organizations have successfully created a 5S system and the obstacles and solutions they used to overcome them.