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Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): Understand, Measure and Improve
A best practice in the manufacturing sector and considered the gold standard for measuring productivity, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) provides crucial insights in manufacturing. It was a term...
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What Are 3 Important Things That a Gage R&R Study Reveals?
A gage R&R study is great for studying certain aspects of the systems involved in your day-to-day work, and it’s important to understand the implications of its use. There are various situations...
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PDCA vs PDSA: What’s the Major Difference?
PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) and PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) are two techniques aimed at promoting continuous improvement and extending a company’s ability to stay ahead of a rapidly changing environment....
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Common Cause vs. Special Cause: The Basics of Process Variation
When dealing with process variation, you’ll need to learn to recognize the two general types of it, and the ways they impact the operation of your business. In most cases, some level of variance to a...
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5 Important Considerations for Your Six Sigma Project
Integrating Six Sigma into your workflow is something that can have a huge positive impact on your operations, and there is a lot of information out there that you can use to catch up on recent trends...
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Exploring Process Variability in Six Sigma
Variability is inevitable in every process, no matter how hard you might try to adjust your practices to avoid it. In some cases it’s even inherent to the design of the system and is just something...
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Bottleneck Analysis Improves Flow
“I say an hour lost at a bottleneck is an hour out of the entire system. I say an hour saved at a non-bottleneck is worthless. Bottlenecks govern both throughput and inventory.” Eliyahu M. Goldratt...
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[VIDEO] Improving Flow With Bottleneck Analysis
One of the most serious causes of workflow process breakdowns is bottlenecks. When efficiency is crucial to an workflow process, a bottleneck can significantly impact the bottom line and customer...
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Continuous Improvement in a Call Center: 5 Challenges to Overcome
When it comes to a call center, there are some specific challenges to consider which might not be immediately obvious. Once you’re aware of them and have been able to plan for them properly, things...
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8 Forms of Waste in Lean Facilities Management
Facilities management is a field that somewhat predisposes to creating waste and misusing resources. This makes it important to keep a close eye on the way your processes work in this area, and to...
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Where Can One Reduce Process Variation? 5 Areas to Explore
Process variation is a difficult issue to deal with in some industries, while others tend to have a rather easy time with it. The problem becomes obvious when you’re working with a process that’s...
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Understanding the Tools Needed to Ensure Quality vs. Reliability
There are various ways to ensure that the processes in your organization run more smoothly and produce predictable results. However, it’s important to understand the differences between tools aimed at...
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[TED Talk] The Next Manufacturing Revolution
The US has been facing a loss of its manufacturing edge over the past few decades to other global manufacturers. The fact is that automation and innovation will be the key to success in manufacturing...
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Lean Leadership and the Competitive Edge in Manufacturing
“Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.” ~Sir Winston Churchill There has been much made about America losing its competitive...
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Voice of the Customer (VOC): Get Strategic and Get Results
“The single most important thing is to make people happy. If you are making people happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.” ~Derek Sivers, Founder of CD Baby...
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[VIDEO] Winning With Exceptional Customer Service
In the U.S., poor customer service costs brands $83 billion every year. A study by management consultancy Bain & Company and Harvard Business School found increasing customer retention rates by 5...
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Process Reliability vs Process Capability: The Differences
There is a lot of talk about process reliability and process capability in lean circles, and while many leaders believe that they have a firm grasp on both concepts, the reality tends to be a bit...
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5 Important Considerations for Implementing Six Sigma Within Supply Chain...
Not everyone understands what Six Sigma really is. Essentially it is a project that is data driven and designed to improve any processes within your supply chain management by simply identifying and...
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Heijunka Leveling Production Over Time
After value streams have been solidified and embedded, Heijunka is a crucial process implementation in every successful lean organization. Heijunka quickly and elegantly helps organizations meet...
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[VIDEO] Heijunka Brings Customer Demand In Line
Heijunka is the Japanese term for leveling. It is a technique for reducing unevenness (Mura) which in turn reduces waste (Muda). It is crucial to the development of production efficiency in Lean...
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