Tweddle Continuous Improvement

Is this series of videos something that someone would organize a learning experience around?  I would love to attend.

And she is right. It makes no sense, based on her experience, to work hard to expose waste. Unless. Unless you and I, leaders in our organizations, act differently as well. Unless we demonstrate exposing waste gets rewarded, not punished. Unless we walk the talk ourselves. Unless we say thank you. Unless we demonstrate respect for her opinion. That's trust. And, without it, all the waste we so nobly hope to find remains hidden. Keep on learning.

The Title was just too funny not to post!

a look at the companies leading the way in lean manufacturing that includes GM, Kellogg and Lockheed Martin

That would be Grrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

I'm having trouble putting "Frosted Flakes" and "Lean" in the same topic.

Project Mgt & Lean

The report-out is the beginning of kaizen, not the end. The next phase is not "follow-up." It is a natural continuation, if less intense, of the kaizen process. The report-out is describing an engineering prototype. Now it is time to test it and discover what we didn't know during the design process.

Frequently missed, but a great point...

Going to the gemba to understand what is really happening, digging for facts especially when they contradict popular perception, developing a strategy, and communicating that strategy to stakeholders and customers. That's leadership, law enforcement style.

Perhaps we can use something like this in our Program Mgt Task Force

Great suggestion...

At this factory, the manager became a Saw-Muri warrior.  He was now sensitized to a common but invisible productivity and morale killer.  Too often however, managers don't see Muri.  They put a person in a stressful job, and he will occasionally have to rest.  This is sometimes referred to by those managers who can't see Muri as "dogging it."  

I loved this part of the article - so true: "Standing with a management team from a large manufacturer on a receiving dock at a distribution center, we watched a truck being unloaded. The worker meticulously checked and double-checked part counts against the manifest as the freight was loaded onto the dock. One senior manager who was standing near to the worker audibly remarked to our group, "This is what happens when we pay by the hour" (dogging it). The worker then turned to the manager and retorted, "No, this is happening now because last week I got my a&%^ reamed by my supervisor for miscounting." Mental Muri."

There are some great ideas in here. I love labeling the light switches, because we went a couple of days last week where the lights in the front office were off since no one knew where the swtch was. Color coding the printer / printer cartridge is brilliant. Instruction sheets for office equipment...

I'm going to use this in my 5S class on Thrusday.

This poorly made cartoon does a nice job with a cautionary tale about problem solving.

Good article on waste elimination

Just make things flow as smoothly and efficiently as you can envision. Develop the flow as though a single person were performing the entire process from start to finish. Make it as smooth as possible for this person. No back tracking, no awkward motions. Everything is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.

This would be a great approach for the integration of creative / content management / DID exercise that you have been working on.

True visual management goes far beyond having a clean and well-organized factory. Visual management provides real-time information and feedback regarding the status of the plant. It is a company-wide "nervous system" that allows all employees to understand how they affect the factory's overall performance.

But let's be clear what we are striving for. With every improvement we make, we want to converge on the idea of: Batch size of one. Lead time of zero. Zero waste of resources.

"I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." - Helen Keller

Who could facilitate a Lego game for us?  I would love to participate.

There is no reason that we can't try.

Oh, and "senior management" . . . would be nice to do the game and video the event for company distribution. A fun learning tool -- which reminds me of what a vendor said yesterday: "People learn best when playing games."

This is an interesting concept. They seem to be taking the use of layered process audits in an different direction. I wonder if this would cause us to re-write some of our audits?