Problems are inevitable, no matter how hard we plan and what precautions we take, they will eventually creep up and bite us. Rushing in and trying to fix the problems quickly, however, rarely seems to truly make these problems go away. Often, they come back time after time. The reason for this is that we… Continue reading A3 Problem Solving | A3 Root Cause Analysis
Author: leanman
Started work in first tier supply to the Automotive Industry supplying all of the big Automotive companies including Toyota. Became heavily involved in Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and Quality Management. Eventually moved out to become a consultant working for Government bodies and Cranfield University as well as working within the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge University.
My working life has seen me move from shop floor to General Manager Level. I have an MSc in Manufacturing; Management and Technology.
Lean Consulting and Support
Not every business or up and coming lean facilitator has the money to pay a consultant potentially thousands of dollars a day to come and provide the help and support that they are looking for. Nor do they necessarily want to bring in a consultant that is going to try to confuse them with Japanese… Continue reading Lean Consulting and Support
One on One Lean Coaching Online
One on One Support Improving your processes can be difficult if you do not know where to start, as can be implementing Lean Manufacturing Tools such as 5S or Value Stream Mapping. Our online coaching for Lean however could be the answer that you are looking for. Hiring lean management consultants can be an expensive… Continue reading One on One Lean Coaching Online
Setup Reduction SMED Coaching
“Send me a video and I will help reduce your setup times” Reducing setup time is a vital part of most Lean implementations if you want to be able to reduce batch sizes and improve process efficiency. SMED as the name suggests allows you to reduce your setup time to single minutes if implemented well.… Continue reading Setup Reduction SMED Coaching
Lean Process Improvement Coaching
“Send me a video of your process and I will help make it more efficient” One of the most common areas that companies are looking for when looking for any form of lean support is to improve their process efficiency. They want to be able to produce more at a reduced cost whilst often improving… Continue reading Lean Process Improvement Coaching
5S Training Presentations
5S PPTx and 5S PDF Downloads If you want to learn all about 5S then the following 5S presentations in ppt (PowerPoint) format and PDF format are available to you for free download. Please note that these 5S Training presentation files are protected by copyright and are to be downloaded for your own personal use… Continue reading 5S Training Presentations
Mura – Unevenness; Production Leveling
What is Mura? Most Lean practitioners that I have met have little idea as to what is Mura only really being aware of Muda or the seven wastes. Within the Toyota Production system however, which spawned what we now call lean, they concentrate on three main areas of waste; Mura (unevenness), Muri (overburden) and… Continue reading Mura – Unevenness; Production Leveling
Muri Overburden
What is Muri? Muri is to Overburden your employees or machines, it can also be seen as “unreasonableness”. It is placing operators and machines under unnecessary stress by making demands on them that are unreasonable and often very unnecessary. When most people talk about waste they are talking about the… Continue reading Muri Overburden
Planning and running Kaizen Events
Kaizen events are short duration improvement projects with a specific aim for improvement; typically they are week long events led by a facilitator with the implementation team being predominantly members of the area in which the kaizen event is being conducted plus a few additional people from support areas and even management. Kaizen events although… Continue reading Planning and running Kaizen Events
What is Kaizen?
Kaizen Definition We can define kaizen very simply from its original Japanese as meaning “change for the better”, but what does this actually mean as a kaizen philosophy? Japanese Kaizen Kaizen began its life shortly after world war 2 when the US sent a number of advisers to help the Japanese rebuild… Continue reading What is Kaizen?