Author: Editor in Chief Sarah A. Webster
Date: 5/1/2013
Compact Power Services is remanufacturing old Bullard VTLs, turning the hulks into “Elec-trols,” modern, efficient powerhouses
Full Article Author: J. Ned Dempsey, Pneu-Logic Corp. and Barry Hendrix, HBG Consulting
Date: 3/2/2013
Energy savings as part of a lean manufacturing strategy
Full Article Author: Douglas Greene, President, Hixson Metal Finishing
Date: 3/1/2013
Metal Finishing has historically been known as a messy, poorly organized and managed profession with little accountability and aggravation in spades for all stakeholders. But small California supplier Hixson Metal Finishing is working to obliterate that reputation and make it as sterling as their long-time home of Newport Beach is beautiful.
Full Article Author: Dave Lalain
Vice President, Commercial Development
Automotive Industry Action Group
Southfield, MI
Date: 1/3/2013
Industry group brings together competitors in order to prevent a global automotive shutdown.
Full Article Author: Phillip S. Waldrop, PhD.
Professor of Manufacturing and MER Steering Committee member
Date: 11/19/2012
Given the shortage of skilled front line workers and leaders, it is critical to the employer to not only hire qualified people, but to then protect their recruitment, selection, and training investment by keeping them on board into the future.
Full Article Author: Jeffrey K. Liker & James K. Franz, Co-Authors
Date: 11/1/2012
As we have struggled over the years to make sense of what we learned from Toyota, and to teach it to others in many business sectors, we have developed a broader and deeper view of this thing called “lean.”
Full Article Author: Mark Doman, Pawley Professor in Lean Studies, Oakland University
Date: 11/1/2012
When I start my undergraduate Lean Studies course at Oakland University, I ask the students to raise their hands if they have ever been in a plant. Usually, very few hands reach for the sky. When I ask if they are interested in manufacturing, most say, “Not really.” Yet I teach in a suburb of Detroit, the Motor City.
Full Article Author: Nicky Borcea
President
Sohner Plastics
Ann Arbor, MI
Date: 10/1/2012
Dunnage used to ship and process automotive parts on the shop floor is a key component in the overall manufacturing process, yet it is often overlooked when companies are working to make lines lean and green. Today, it is important that manufacturers know that most dunnage used to transport parts from start to finish can be reused for the lifetime of production.
Full Article Author: Steve Bond, National Sales Manager, RoboDrill, RoboCut and EDM Products, Methods Machine Tools, Inc.
Date: 9/28/2012
Manufacturers, regardless of the products they produce, realize that to be successful in a global market, reducing costs and waste throughout their organization is critical. Amid recession, employers were faced with downsizing in an effort to maintain the bottom line and many turned to LEAN practices to help them survive.
Full Article Author: Arsenin Rodriguez, Director - Business Consulting, Infor
Date: 9/1/2012
As aerospace and defense companies turn to internal process improvement to combat current market pressures, enhanced decision making is gaining recognition for its role in strategic planning, forecasting and supporting responsive customer service. Enhanced decision-making is becoming an important weapon in the A&D manufacturer’s arsenal.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Michael C. Anderson
Date: 8/1/2012
As with every other part of the supply chain in 2012, the companies in this pavilion are adapting to ever-higher demands in productivity, reliability, and sustainability in an era of cut-throat competition and a still-uncertain economy.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Jim Lorincz
Date: 6/1/2012
Machine tool builders have adopted advanced designs and used computer-aided modeling to develop machine technology that meets requirements of manufacturers from one-off applications to production runs in the thousands or many times greater. The challenges they face are complicated by customer requirements to meet higher degrees of accuracy, increased throughput, improved reliability, and safety and lower cost.
Full Article Author: Gaston Pelletier, Vice President of Continous Improvement, Connecticut Spring and Stamping
Date: 3/1/2012
For one Connecticut manufacturer of close tolerance precision metal parts, a nearly 20-year commitment to lean manufacturing has naturally evolved into using self-directed work teams (SDWT) to achieve such ambitious objectives as 100% on-time delivery and 100% quality. With the help of a committed management team, a zealous companywide SDWT champion, dedicated team leaders/cheerleaders, and participation of everyone on the shop floor, Farmington, CT-based Connecticut Spring & Stamping, is well on its way to meeting its ambitious goals, just two years after launching the initiative.
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor Joyce Laird
Date: 2/1/2012
Is your company ready for ISO 50001, which gives organizations the requirements for energy management systems, and the new energy era?
Full Article Author: Editor in Chief Sarah A. Webster
Date: 2/1/2012
The next waste under attack in lean manufacturing is energy. It’s not just because “being green” is in vogue for marketers, either. The very premise of lean manufacturing is about eliminating waste, and unnecessary energy use is the epitome of waste.
Full Article Author: Marc Hafer
Date: 11/1/2011
As businesses in every sector make their way through an uncertain economy, launching new products that deliver value to customers and create new revenue streams is a critical but difficult task. The ability to launch products quickly and cost effectively has never been more important but also never more challenging.
Full Article Author: Lorin Jovag, Manufacturing Engineer, Physio-Control Inc.
Date: 5/1/2011
For more than 55 years, Physio-Control Inc. (Redmond, WA), a unit of Medtronic Inc. (Fridley, MN), has been a manufacturer of portable external heart defibrillator/cardiac monitors, which are considered Class III medical devices. Its Lifepak brand is known for quality and rugged design, and is one of the most-recognized brands in medical devices.
Full Article Author: Richard J. Schonberger
Date: 4/1/2011
We’ve all read the stories: angry employees at Chinese factories protesting and striking over working conditions, pay, and in some cases co-workers’ suicides. And companies responding with wage increases.It’s a bitter palliative: Chinese companies are jacking up pay so employees will stay at their workstations doing intolerable jobs. How intolerable?
Full Article Author: Jamie Flinchbaugh, Lean Learning Center
Date: 7/1/2010
How many managers have just the right amount of work on their plates? I doubt many, at least from my observations and surveys. Many are overloaded; quite a few are overwhelmed. A large percentage of a manager's time is often spent on problems, both those chosen and those that simply pop up and demand attention. Many managers would simply describe their work as solving problems.
Full Article Author: Michael Paris, President, Paris Consultants Inc.
Date: 5/1/2010
If you have never heard the term Yokoten, prepare yourself. It has been added to the Lean Operations lexicon as an important activity. Yokoten is being used by lean firms to help them become leaner. Yokoten is a Japanese term that can be roughly translated as "across everywhere." In the Japanese lean system, it is used to mean "best practice sharing." In short, Yokoten is used to talk about the transfer of lean manufacturing knowledge and practices from one operation to another.
Full Article Author: James P. Womack, Founder and Chairman, The Lean Enterprise Institute
Date: 3/1/2010
We've all now learned one more time that stable growth is hard to achieve in modern economies. The lure of financial fiddles to garner short-term windfalls is very strong, and the will of politicians to nip bubbles in the bud is very weak. Then, when the bubble bursts, regulators—like generals preparing for the last war—put controls in place to prevent the disaster that has just occurred, not the next one.
Full Article Author: Elizabeth Cudney, Assistant Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Date: 3/1/2010
Analyze each step in the original process before making changes.
Full Article Author: Editor Brian J. Hogan
Date: 11/1/2009
Earlier this year, at the 21st annual Shingo Prize conference awards ceremony, Autoliv Americas' airbag module facility in Ogden, UT, was awarded The Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence. This was the second Shingo Prize won by the Autoliv Ogden Airbag Assembly (AOA) plant. The Shingo Prize is named in honor of the great Japanese manufacturing engineer Shigeo Shingo, co-inventor of the Toyota Production System (in other words, lean manufacturing). It's considered the Nobel Prize of the manufacturing world.
Full Article Author: Chris Harris and Rick Harris, Lean Enterprise Institute
Date: 9/1/2009
In this volatile market, manufacturers that produce automotive products (e.g. instrument panels) must react to that volatility correctly and quickly. One way that production plants have to deal with changing customer demands is to create flexibility in their manufacturing systems by using an operator balance chart. The operator balance chart can be a key tool for creating flexibility in a facility supplying products.
Full Article Author: John Burg, President, Ellison Technologies Automation
Date: 7/1/2009
If you're not yet a cheerleader for lean principles in manufacturing and automation, perhaps you should be. There are a number of important reasons why lean makes sense (and cents), but the most important is that it might just save your job and allow your company to keep manufacturing in the US.
Full Article Author: Art Smalley and Tom Harada, Lean Enterprise Institute
Date: 5/1/2009
The Toyota Production System (aka lean manufacturing) has received lots of positive publicity over the past couple of decades in the US and other countries. The recent economic downturn and subsequent decline in company profits may dent some of that enthusiasm, but I suspect the attraction will resume and continue to grow in the future. Despite many attempts at implementation, few companies have been able to match Toyota's success.
Full Article Author: Gary Conner, President, Lean Enterprise Training
Date: 3/1/2009
In the journey to become a world-class manufacturer, there are many tools to utilize, many techniques to apply, many terminologies to learn. Please take time to answer each of the following ten questions. If you find a term unfamiliar, or if you have difficulty answering a particular question, it's possible that difficulty can lead to an opportunity to educate yourself and your team about these terms, tools, and techniques.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Patrick Waurzyniak
Date: 2/1/2009
Lean manufacturing principles and automation systems can coexist, although many lean purists contend that lean goals conflict with using automation. Smart applications of automation, however, can result in deployment of systems that are both automated and lean, with flexible manufacturing systems that can be easily reconfigured as factory operations change.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Patrick Waurzyniak
Date: 11/1/2008
How the metal furniture builder cut waste, improved manufacturing processes, and won the Shingo Prize
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor James R. Koelsch
Date: 9/1/2008
Waste not on your machine, want not on your bottom line
Full Article Author: Sabry Shaaban and Sarah Hudson
Date: 9/1/2008
Improvement of production line performance involves careful organization on the shop floor
Full Article Author: Rick Harris and Chris Harris, Harris Lean Systems Inc.
Date: 8/1/2008
Automation that enhances flow is lean; automation that reduces uptime and extends changeover is not lean
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor Bruce Morey
Date: 7/1/2008
Automation suppliers have adapted their products to lean principles, making automation more useful than ever in getting lean.
Full Article Author: Tim Whitmore, Vice President of Consulting Services, Simpler Consulting
Date: 5/1/2008
Document your process and make problems visible
Full Article Author: Robert B. Pojasek, PhD, Senior Associate, First Environment
Date: 4/1/2008
The term "green manufacturing" has different meanings to different people, usually based on their discipline and training. You can get needlessly sidetracked by definitional disputes. Becoming green should be considered to be a journey, not a destination or static state.
Full Article Author: Norman Bodek, President, PCS Inc.
Date: 3/1/2008
Most companies develop managers, not leaders, and without leaders no company can implement lean principles.
Full Article Author: John Lenz, Senior Programmer, CMS Research Company
Date: 3/1/2008
Closing the gap between the promise of flexible machining systems and the real output they deliver involves removing roadblocks that prevent the higher utilization of system capacity. There are four roadblocks that interfere with the successful implementation of flexible machining systems. Once they are removed, flexible machining can become an effective source of Lean Manufacturing, raising capacity utilization to more than 90%, compared with the 50% most common today.
Full Article Author: Neil Hettler, Technical Leader, Owens Corning Corp.
Date: 1/1/2008
In the book Lean Thinking (Womack and Jones, Free Press, 2003), Art Byrne, former CEO and CFO of The Wiremold Co. (West Hartford, CT) says: "In previous jobs, my senior bosses were more interested in massive long-range 'strategic' planning efforts, which they believed should take precedence. To my way of thinking, this is exactly backwards. Introducing lean techniques in every business activity should be the core of any company's strategy.
Full Article Author: H. Thomas Johnson, Professor of Business Administration, Portland State University
Date: 12/1/2007
American industry must erase lean accounting before it destroys lean management
Full Article Author: Editor Brian J. Hogan
Date: 11/1/2007
Worker involvement and assistance from outside enhance productivity and reduce waste at Hearth & Home Technologies
Full Article Author: Michael Paris, President, Paris Consultants Inc.
Date: 9/1/2007
Cultural change requires continuous, visible effort, particularly by top management
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor James R. Koelsch
Date: 9/1/2007
Pooling resources makes them leaner and meaner
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor Michael Tolinski
Date: 9/1/2007
With flexible mounting and greater reach, tending robots do more in less floor space
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Patrick Waurzyniak
Date: 7/1/2007
With the right automation, lean systems can improve manufacturing processes and boost productivity
Full Article Author: SiewMun Ha, Consultant, Implementation Services LLC
Date: 6/1/2007
Although developed for use in producing discrete parts, lean manufacturing and six sigma can also be applied to continuous-process manufacturing
Full Article Author: George Koenigsaecker, President, Lean Investments LLC
Date: 5/1/2007
Nothing can replace the direct involvement of leaders
Full Article Author: Ray VanderBok, John A. Sauter, Chris Bryan, and Jennifer Horan
Date: 3/1/2007
Unforeseen problems originating deep in the supply chain can disrupt production plans and impose unacceptable costs on an enterprise
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert B. Aronson
Date: 3/1/2007
The headaches of holemaking
Full Article Author: Jamie Flinchbaugh, Lean Learning Center
Date: 4/1/2006
Lean is not only implemented; it’s a journey that both enables and captures everyday learning. But learning by itself is useless. It is only with the rigorous application of those lessons learned that results are achieved. Learning and action go hand-in-hand. But creating, and sustaining, a culture of learning is not easy.
Full Article Author: George Koenigsaecker, President, Lean Investments LLC
Date: 3/1/2006
The first in a series of six articles on Lean Tools examines the relationship between Strategy Deployment and Lean Manufacturing
Full Article