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January 2014

Continuous Improvement Development Guide, PHASE 4: Building the Foundation

Overview

In this phase you will build the foundation of your business management system. The focus here is creating the structure upon which you can apply the variety of tools that support Lean operations. The team will emphasize creating flow and eliminating waste. It will also become extremely accustomed to using Standard Work and other forms of standardization to stabilize processes. Finally, we roll out kaizen events during this phase.

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Continuous Improvement Development Guide PHASE 1: Introduction and Exploration

Phase 1 of our Continuous Improvement Development System is the “Introduction and Exploration” phase. This is the time when people start acting on their curiosity and actively seek information about Lean or Six Sigma of whatever continuous improvement discipline they are considering. It is probably worth noting at this point that we use the terms “Lean” and “Continuous Improvement” rather interchangeably. In truth, Lean is just one specific form of continuous improvement, but since it is rather open to new ideas, in practice anything you would do in a generic CI program, you can do in Lean. And any generic CI program would adopt any Lean tools and principles that work. In essence, they are identical.

But regardless of how you frame what you are going to do, some people will have a bit of knowledge; others will be completely blank slates. Some people will be skeptical; others will be instantly convinced. Still others will never make the leap to start a transformation. What that means is that the time it will take you to move through this phase will vary, and the path will be unique. So, what should you do?

By Jeff Hajek, ago

MYLS Newsletter: January, 2014

  • Notes from Jeff: We’ve made some great gains in our website’s performance, thanks to your feedback and loyalty. Much appreciated.
  • What’s New?: Our “Practical Guide” is taking shape. It’s not too late to let us know what you’d like to see in it.
  • Recent Articles: We put together a list of improvement principles that we will be basing our “Practical Guide” on. We also interviewed Karen Martin about her new book.
  • Specials: Buy our DVD pack for $199 and get our PowerPoint pack (regularly $139) free.
  • New Products: While we have no premium products for sale, we have added to our free content.
By Jeff Hajek, ago

Kanban Card Example

This example depicts the actual flow of how Velaction produces our DVDs in a just-in-time manner. We make frequent improvements to our products, so do not want to carry a lot of inventory. Instead, we do in-house production of our DVDs.

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Poka Yoke Infographic

Passing on poor quality is a big no-no in a Lean operation. It is disruptive to flow when defects are found far downstream from where the error took place.

Poka yokes support this principle in two ways. The first is that they help to eliminate defects at the source. This is the optimum situation in which a defect never happens in the first place.

By Jeff Hajek, ago