Contents:
Tanner that meant a lean transformation had to show the company appreciated and wanted people's problem-solving ideas. Here's a report on that effort, including what worked and what didn't. A lean transformation had taken heavy-equipment manufacturer Vermeer away from batch manufacturing, but batch ordering by dealers was delaying how quickly they got equipment like brush chippers. Herman Miller's Experiment in Excellence At Herman Miller, the Lean Management effort helps it build problem solvers as well as world-class office furniture.
And as this case study shows, lean practices also helped it weather a brutal recession. Build Your "House" of Production on a Stable Foundation Rigorous problem solving creates basic stability in a machining intensive facility.
A Journey to Value Streams: Reorganizing Into Five Groups Drives Lean Improvements and Customer Responsiveness An approach to creating a Value -stream culture centered on autonomy, entrepreneurialism, and lean principles. Creating the Course and Tools for a Lean Accounting System A lean accounting implementation fills the frustrating disconnect between shop-floor improvements and financial statements.
For Athletic Shoe Company, the Soul of Lean Management Is Problem Solving After taking a lean tools approach to change, management re-organized the transformation around problem solving and process improvement to create a culture that engaged people while boosting performance. Lean Transformation Lives and Dies with Tools and Dies After a failed first try at just-in-time production , a company transforms tool maintenance, design, and fabrication to create a solid foundation for a second attempt.
Seasoned Lean Effort Avoids "Flavor-of-the-Month" Pitfall A look at how one company's approach to what new tools it introduced, in what order, and how it prevented each new technique from being viewed as a "flavor of the month" fad. Shifting to Value-Stream Managers: Two years into a lean transformation, the low-hanging fruit has been plucked and progress has started to slow.
To make sure training engaged and resonated with people after previous attempts at a lean transformation faltered, LifeWay matched Lean Management tools and principles to its Bible-based culture and language. Lean management case study series: Go to Where the Action Is! Starting with daily management walkabouts and standard work , this distributor had laid the groundwork for steady gains for years to come, just two years after its first kaizen workshop.
Putting Lean Principles in the Warehouse. Executives at Menlo Worldwide Logistics saw an opportunity to leapfrog the competition by embracing lean in its outsourced warehousing and receiving operations. A company expands the lean transformation from the shop floor to international distribution, domestic shipping, and product development.
Transforming from Conventional to Lean Distribution. Large inventories to cover fluctuations in demand once characterized Toyota's service parts distribution system -- but no more. Here's how one DC made the switch. Creating the critical Plan for Every Part was one step in a methodical four-step implementation process to replace a traditional material-handling system.
Low-volume, High-mix Manufacturing; Tool and Die.
Sikorsky managers apply the lean concept of "every part, every interval" EPEI to level the mix in demand and create flow through a key manufacturing cell. After a failed first try at just-in-time production , a company transforms tool maintenance, design, and fabrication to create a solid foundation for a second attempt. The "inventory" of mail already is paid for, so moving it faster doesn't improve cash flow as in lean manufacturing. But Canada Post discovered that traditional batch-and-queue postal operations could benefit from lean principles. Lean Thinking in Government: The State of Iowa.
This paper presents a systematic procedure which could be used by Lean practitioners to conduct Lean events in their office environment. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a successful Lean project in a local small manufacturer for two major purposes. In this case study, blue books are required for customer orders, and it is the need of the customers that receive the product that they have specified, with as short a lead time as possible. Evaluate the needs of the customer - project charter - results required, culture of the company, time frame for project. The map of the Structural Design process is shown in Figure 5 while the Electrical Design process is shown in Figure 6. Lean Management Examples from a Variety of Businesses. After the future state map is proposed, the team members start brainstorming on how.
This story examines a kaizen event at a veterans home and more broadly at the lean effort in Iowa government. Goodrich Aerostructures' Chula Vista plant introduces city government to lean thinking and practices so in order to maintain municipal services without resorting to further cuts in the workforce. Grand Rapids, MI, turns to lean principles to consolidate operations, eliminate wasted time and effort, and streamline to improve productivity while providing the quality of service that residents want. The Cleveland Clinic reinvents its continuous improvement program to instill a problem-solving mindset and the skillset to solve everyday problems among the clinic's thousands of caregivers.
View from the Hospital Floor: In order to do more and improve faster, the Cleveland Clinic is rolling out a methodology for building a "culture of improvement" across the 48,employee hospital system as this followup to the above story shows. Here's how it works according to the people making the changes. Dentistry is a job shop that Dr. Sami Bahri is out to improve fundamentally for the benefit of patients through the application of lean principles.
Lean improvement projects at Akron Children's Hospital have saved millions of dollars, increased utilization of expensive assets, and reduced wait times for patients and their families. Input from nurses, doctors, therapists, technicians, and patient parents heavily influenced design decisions.. A thoughtful rollout of lean principles in the ER and eye-opening results created a "pull" for lean from other departments.
Best in Healthcare Getting Better with Lean. After forming the team, a basic Lean principles training was provided to team members; moreover, team members also learned about steps and tips of creating a VSM. The blue book was chosen as the target of this Lean project because it is the major product of the non-manufacturing area. Creating a blue book involves three departments in the company: Purchasing, Electrical Design, and Structural Design.
The Lean event team focused on the processes which were involved in creating a blue book. Initially, the PM provided the information about customer demand. According to the passive orders, the company receives about orders annually. Performing a walkthrough and collecting the data which represents the current status in each department is the second step of creating a current value stream map. By consulting process owners, team members obtained and recorded most of the necessary information, such as process time, numbers of workers, and pending work in each station.
After the first walkthrough, team members became familiar with the current flow and sequence of creating a blue book and also roughly drew the current-state map by following the icon scheme shown in Figure 2. In the second round, team members focus on the communication in each department. Operation owners described the sequence of their jobs, and how they communicate with upstream and downstream processes. That helps the team draw linkages of information and material flow on the current-state map.
In the third round, the team focused on the time consumptions of each process and pending job. Team members checked the process time and lead time with operation owners; moreover, in this walkthrough team members verified uncertain information collected in the previous walkthroughs. After collecting this data and re-checking with the process owners, the Lean project team created the current value stream map as shown in Figure 3.
They notify the president that they received the quote and then the president generates the order that tells the PM to create the BOM. Additionally, the PM is in charge of customer communication and reviewing any design corrections. Therefore, every change in the blue book must go through PM. After creating the BOM, the PM sends it to the customer via email, and waits for the customer to review it. The customer review takes about 10 working days, which greatly increases the lead time of the non-manufacturing area.
After the PM is finished with this review, the BOM is sent to Purchasing so that they can check the raw material item numbers and ensure that the customized product can be made based on raw material availability. The map of the Purchasing sub process is shown in Figure 4. While Purchasing performs this review, the BOM is also sent to the customer for another review and correction. Once the customer reviews and approves the layout and the purchaser verifies the items, the information is sent back to the PM.
The map of the Structural Design process is shown in Figure 5 while the Electrical Design process is shown in Figure 6. Since a blue book is made by several departments, the Lean event team created a VSM for each department. In the purchasing sub-process Figure 4 , most of the transportation of information was made via email. The POs are sent back to the purchaser once the suppliers have checked their copy and corrected any incorrect item numbers. The PM told the Lean even team that the purchasing correction loop is usually repeated 2 times per task. There are four designers involved in Electrical Design and all of their work must be checked by the PM before the designs are sent to the customers or the production area.
After the PM finalizes any corrections the electrical design of the blue book will be sent to Support Cycle for a point-to-point check of the electrical design and so labels can be made for each point and wire. After observing this and the Structural Design process, the Lean event team members determined that the correction process.
VSM of Purchasing sub process. VSM of Electrical Design sub process. This greatly increased the lead time of these sub processes.
Furthermore, while all of the design information that is transported from the PM to the customers is done via email, the information transported between the PM and Electrical Design or Structural Design is done by physically delivering the blue book. After three walkthroughs, the Lean event team members determined there were some needed improvements in the current state.
Based on the information from the current value stream map, the team began brainstorming a future ideal state for the company. Following the proposed procedure, the team addressed the following seven questions to define a future VSM:. In this case study, blue books are required for customer orders, and it is the need of the customers that receive the product that they have specified, with as short a lead time as possible.
According to a review of past orders, the company receives orders per year. The working time of the company is 8 hours per day, days per year. The Takt time of each task, according to Equation 1, is about The PM will review the customized blue book, and it will also be reviewed by customers whenever it is changed. According to the current-state map in Figure 3 , the total value-added time, such as creating BOM and creating the electrical and structural designs, is only about By reviewing the current-state map and discussing it with the process owners, the Lean event team found that there are several existing non-value-added activities and waste.
These non-value-added activities are described in the Table 2.
Due to lack of control of task sequence and time consumption, it is not easy to track all of the tasks in the. VSM of Structural Design sub process.
Identified non-value added activity. The Lean event team suggested that the company apply a Kanban system. This will efficiently schedule tasks to real time demand as well as optimize and control the pending work. Interruptions can be decreased by applying software applications in some sub processes. According to observations, every process in the company is done using a push system, there is no rule to control the task priority, and all of the information on customer demand is managed by the PM. Therefore, the Lean project team suggested that a pull system be implemented where the priority of the tasks are controlled by Kanban system managed by the PM.
If the lead time of the customer correction is able to be reduced, the total lead time to create the blue books would be relatively decreased. The team found that the PM and purchasers did not check their email frequently; therefore, there is no efficient standard tracking system for task sequence. This would allow the company to reduce the total lead time. The Lean project team also recommended that an online order entry should be developed for the purchasing sub process as well as the creation of a database so that available item numbers can be recorded.
A clear future state of the company was envisioned by the team members upon answering the seven questions listed above. The light burst areas designate the areas that will be improved by conducting Kaizen activity. In the proposed future state, the team members streamlined the office processes and suggested that the production of every process should be triggered by its customers demand.
The future VSM serves as a guide for further improvement of the Lean event. After the future state map is proposed, the team members start brainstorming on how. Future VSM with light bursts of Kaizen events. Each sub process is considered a loop for improvement. Since the lead time of the electrical design process is higher than the purchasing and structural design processes, this is considered as the first target to improve.
There is a measurable goal for each loop, and the leader assigns a person to be in charge of the improvement of each of the loops. The proposed value stream plan is shown in Figure 8. While brainstorming the future VSM, team members identified where the non-value added activities and wastes existed in the current process Table 2. The goal of the Lean Office event is to continuously reduce waste in office processes and to add value in products or services.
A clear direction about what the team needs to implement in what loop is provided by the value stream plan Figure 8. The light bursts in the future-state map shown in Figure 7 , which are matched to the value stream objecttives in the value stream plan, represent a change that needs to be made in order to make the current system look more like the future state map. Once the root cause was identified the team then brainstormed solutions for each problem. The following paragraphs summarize these Kaizen events. The three effects of this high defect rate are:.
Proposed value stream plan. In addition, the purchasing process should be completed before the design phase begins. Therefore, by waiting for a final BOM and cross-checking each others work, the Electrical Design team can help ensure that the PM is simply approving the final design, rather than perpetuating a continuous cycle of corrections. There is a repeated cycle that happens when Purchasing is forced to call the supplier for clarification.
Due to the constant correction cycle between the material supplier and Purchasing, the Lean event team proposed another cell in which purchasing and quoting are combined into one process to eliminate waste. If purchasing and quoting are combined into one process, the BOM will be finalized and material ordered before the PM starts a design and corrections will no longer need to be passed to the PM.
During the design creation process, unnecessary steps are executed that require manual transportation of design documents to several areas in the office. To deal with this problem, the team members measured the distance from each particular office and found where and when the transportation occurs, which is summarized in Table 3. After measuring the distances, the Lean event team found that one critical problem in the design process is the repetition of identical transports. The Lean event team proposed a Kanban post and Kanban card for the company, which is shown in Figure 1 2.
This Kanban post visually shows the PM and designers each task and which department it is in. To track the tasks efficiently, each task is accompanied by a Kanban card. Once a process is completed, a slip is torn off the Kanban card and then placed on the board. Proposed Kanban post and card. During the purchasing or design process, any corrections are written on the slip, which is then returned to the responsible team member. This paper presents a systematic procedure which could be used by Lean practitioners to conduct Lean events in their office environment.
The proposed procedure incurporates the knowledge of several articles, books and successful Lean events. It also includes a case study which follows the proposed procedures and is provided as a reference for creating a Lean office. The application of Lean principles in a manufacturing area means identifying the value added and non-value added activities in manufacturing processes and then eliminating the nonvalue added activities while improving the value added activities.
The systematic procedure proposed here extends this concept to transform an office environment into a Lean office that has customer-triggered working processes, faster and systematic task tracking, and reduced costs due to a reduction of non-value added activeties.