Muda Muda is a Japanese word for “waste”, and don’t kid yourself into believing that your operation is so lean & mean there can’t be any significant waste going on. Waste comes in many forms; my definition of waste is simply “anything the customer is not willing to pay for’. Of course, hard wastes are […]
Tales from the Road A typical scenario for me is to be walking through a manufacturing facility and stopping at a work center manned by a highly-skilled operator. The management escort is quick to say “Stanley here is our department lead, and one of our most experienced drill operators.” When asked to see Stanley’s training records, the […]
The gemba walk provides company leaders, managers and supervisors a simple, easy means of supporting overall continuous improvement while directly engaging with the folks responsible for the key business processes. The best approach to a gemba walk is to start at the last process and work upstream. Why? This will highlight how well your process […]
Driving incremental improvement in your process is not something that can be done without intimate personal engagement; not just from the owners of the process, but also from the organization’s leadership. A hands-off approach by management will doom the effort before it begins. Management By Walking Around Tom Peters, author of the “Excellence” series of […]
Forwarded with permission SW August 19, 2015: Barbara Jorgensen – ElectronicsPurchasingStrategies. A U.S. appeals court ruled this week that the government cannot compel companies to report whether or not their products contain so-called “conflict minerals”—gold, tantalum, tin, and tungsten—mined from regions in Africa. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on […]
Using Audit Results to Drive Improvement Audit results are an invaluable source of process improvement opportunities and generally uncover two different categories of intelligence: 1. People not doing things they should, and 2. People doing things they shouldn’t. People not doing things they should This is the case where the current procedures, work instructions and […]
Audit Staff Once the audit plan has been formulated, the audit staff can begin to be developed and trained. Cross-functional members can be drawn from the pool of managers, supervisors, and line positions within the company. The auditors need not be totally familiar with the procedures they will be assigned, and in fact the system […]
Developing a robust internal auditing system is one of the best ways to maintain a consistent, effective quality system and avoid undesirable findings during an external (customer or ISO) audit. But the greatest value to the organization is when internal audits are used as a continuous improvement tool. Lead Auditor The process begins with the […]
Supply chain management is not a recent revelation; in fact, the supply chain strategy used 5,000 years ago would give modern supply chain managers a run for their money. In ancient times, transportation technology was basic so the cost of moving goods was the primary factor, so goods were put together close to the source […]
When asked to discuss supply chain strategy, I am often greeted with the response “Yes of course, we have a purchasing department”. Supply Chain Management has progressed far beyond the old school purchasing mentality to become a key component of the modern business organization. We are all just pieces in the supply chain puzzle that […]
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