Aligning your processes for lean initiatives

A recap of Snips’ series on lean manufacturing: In the March issue, the importance of creating a whole lean company — not just implementing a few tools — was discussed.

In the May issue, the topic was how to develop a lean-education system.

Customer Focused

5S’s Tips from Brad Schmidt, President of Gemba Japan

“5S Training - Insist on giving people training about kaizen and the 7 types of waste before doing 5S with them. If 5S doesn't make sense to them, they will oppose it.

Tops of Cabinets - Always check on top of machines and cabinets. A whole bunch of stuff is up there.

Leadership

Leadership is often about asking the tough questions and staying focused on finding the right answers. Jim Womack, a noted writer on Lean, has this to say about what questions to ask:

Measuring your success with lean programs

Having designed your company’s answers to who will lead its lean efforts and how you will educate on lean, one of the next critical questions is:

“How will you measure your success?”

Measurement is always a tricky subject in any organization. Most people fear it because of how it has often been misapplied and misused.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Lean measures should help management — not punish employees.

Some basic principles regarding measurement include:

What gets measured gets results. People respond to what they perceive is important to management. If you measure it, they will try to make it look good. This can happen several ways. Employees can improve the work being measured. What often happens is employees improve the measure by playing games with the...

Please read more on the Snips Magazine Website

Lean in HealthCare

Helen Zak of the Lean Institute writes about the national healthcare debate and Lean:

“No doubt you've heard and read a lot about the debate in Washington D.C. over healthcare reform.

Leadership & Purpose

Jim Womack, author of Lean Thinking made some insightful comments about structure and purpose in his April 2009 newsletter. He said,

“One of my favorite questions when meeting with senior leaders of enterprises is, ‘What is your organization's purpose?’ The typical and immediate response is, ‘To make money and grow.’ ‘But,’ I respond, ‘this answer has nothing to do with your customers, who provide the money your organization needs to profit and grow.’ I then repeat my question, but elaborate, 'What does your organization do to solve customer problems better than competitors so that customers old and new will pay good money for your services and goods and buy more over time?'

“In recent years a fashionable alternative to