If you have read my book the Lean Game Plan, you know I talk about Value Stream Mapping as the first step to understand where you should focus your improvement efforts. If you have never completed a Value Stream Map for your organization, it will be helpful to develop l an Enterprise Value Stream Map …
In the previous blog, I talked about setting up our pull chains for the parts that support the top 80% of the products you sell to customers. We calculated the quantities we need to keep at each location within the pull chain. In this blog, let’s talk about how we will signal when we are …
How to Increase Cash Flow without Laying Off Employees Part 4 Read More »
In the previous blog, we talked about setting up our pull chain for the parts that support the top 80% of the products you sell to customers. We discussed understanding the pull chain for each type of part that goes into your finished product. Next, we need to consider the customer demand for the products …
How to Increase Cash Flow Without Laying Off Employees Part 3 Read More »
If you have had an opportunity to read my book the Lean Game Plan, you know that I talk about implementing pull systems within the organization to improve inventory turns and increase cash flow. I saw firsthand how powerful pull systems are when I worked with a family-owned company in Cincinnati that had very poor …
How to Increase Cash Flow without Laying Off Employees Part 2 Read More »
These are unique times in the business world right now. Many middle-market and SME’s (small and medium-sized enterprises) will return to work and cash flow will be on everyone’s mind. I want to share a four-part series on how to increase cash flow in your manufacturing operations. The default thought process might be to cut …
How to Increase Cash Flow Without Laying Off Employees Part 1 Read More »
Now that social distancing is a thing, I would like to provide you with a tool you can use to maintain social distancing and keep employees safe. It might require a re-design of your current assembly lines, but it will be worth it. It is called In-Process-Kanban or IPK. Many of the pictures I have …
Keep Employees Safe and Minimize WIP Using In-Process-Kanbans (IPK’s) Read More »
There are wastes everywhere in your business. Going to operations and conducting a waste walk will help you identify opportunities for improvement! One of the techniques to understand where opportunities lie in eliminating waste is to develop a Value Stream Map of the enterprise. This is called an EVSM or Enterprise Value Stream Map. Once …
Many years ago, in a galaxy far, far away…oh not really. Toyota identified the seven wastes when they developed the Toyota Production System from 1948 to 1975. As the production system was integrated into Western culture the eighth waste- Not Listening to People’s Ideas was adopted. When put into the correct order, the eight wastes …
If you read my book the Lean Game Plan, you know that I talk about having the lean basics in place- Inventory accuracy, Bill of Material accuracy and 6S before getting more sophisticated. I want to talk about 6S in this blog. You often see 5S, 5S +1, 6S and even 7S which all refer …
If you have read my book the Lean Game Plan, you know that I talk about having the lean basics in place- Inventory Accuracy, Bill of Material accuracy and 6S before getting more sophisticated. Today, I want to talk about easy ways to improve inventory accuracy. Palletized.us I’m sure you have run into the situation, …