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Takt is a German word for the baton used by maestros. Just as musicians must be synchronized with the conductor, the rate of production within an organization must be synchronized with the rate of its delivery.
In a nutshell, takt time is a theoretical figure that indicates how much time is…
(Stanley Vidmar: Allentown, PA) -- Stanley Vidmar, a manufacturer of premium custom storage solutions for use in a wide range of industries, is now offering its customers another lean manufacturing solution: the 5S Cabinet. Made with a durable cabinet case featuring metal pegboard inserts and…
Search the internet for “What is SPC?” and there are many definitions and descriptions of statistical process control that are correct but not complete. They are true but not the whole truth.
From the search results, a general definition and description of SPC could be as follows.
Definition: SPC…
(Lean Learning Center: NOVI, MI) -- The Lean Learning Center, a provider of lean consulting and transformation services in the world, recently announced its first expansion of lean topics in its Single Point Lesson package.
Single Point Lessons are one-page structured teaching tools that…
(ISSSC and 10 til 2: Cincinnati) -- The International Society for Six Sigma Certification (ISSSC) and 10 til 2—The Part-time Placement Service—have formed an alliance that will help connect area businesses with highly skilled professionals certified in the Six Sigma program.
"This new alliance…
(SigmaXL: Toronto) -- The provider of user-friendly Excel add-ins for statistical and graphical analysis, announces the release of SigmaXL Version 6.
New features include:
Powerful Excel workbook/worksheet manager
Lean value stream mapping template
Process capability and control charts…
(Palisade: Ithaca, NY) -- When building simulation models with @RISK, consider the following best practices suggested by Palisade's director of training and consulting, Michael Rees, Ph.D.:
* A risk model may need to be built at an appropriate level of detail. A model which is too detailed will…
A lean Six Sigma program instituted by Erie County, New York, has come under fire recently. The county's program is outlined in an article in Quality Digest Daily, "Analyzing Data Saves Millions for County Tax Payers," which describes how county executive Chris Collins implemented a lean Six Sigma…
(General Dynamics Information Technology: Fairfax, VA) -- General Dynamics Information Technology, a business unit of General Dynamics, has been awarded a $9.2 million dollar, three-year contract to support the U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) and Office of the Surgeon General.
General…
(GBMP: Boston, MA) -- The 5th Annual Northeast Shingo Prize Conference will be held Oct. 7-8 at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. The conference focuses on the lean manufacturing philosophy and best practices, and features talks by today's leading lean practitioners, teachers, and…
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a systematic analysis technique that facilitates the identification of potential problems (failure modes) within a design or manufacturing process. Problems can then be ranked in order of importance to prioritize improvement actions. These actions are…
The core of lean manufacturing, kanbans use the “pull” system to prevent waste by creating a cyclical relationship between the consumer, supplier, and manufacturer. The user of a material requests or "pulls" material from the supplier, as they need it. They do this using some form of notification…
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers presents a new book from Michael J. Termini, Concept to Customer: Portfolio, Pipeline, and Strategic Project Management (SME, 2009). Termini wrote Concept to Customer in response to the many questions from project managers and novices who have sought his…
(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- Senior leaders from the three organizations selected for the 2008 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, as well as representatives from past award recipients, will share their best practices and results at one-day regional conferences on Sept. 15 in Milwaukee, and…
TRANE Residential Systems, is a lean organization that knows about growth through innovation. In 1931, TRANE came up with the radical idea of using technology to provide relief from the summer heat. The 1938 launch of the Turbovac, the industry's first hermetic, centrifugal refrigeration machine,…
(Dyadem: Toronto, Canada) -- Dyadem recently upgraded its Stature enterprise risk management platform. Stature 4.0 will enable Dyadem’s customers to make more informed and strategic decisions about the production processes and products they manage.
The Stature platform is built on the…
(New Mexico MEP: Albuquerque, NM) -- After enrolling its employees in New Mexico's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Lean Culture and Leadership program, Sennheiser raised its 2008 sales by $8 million, improved productivity by 28 percent, and experienced other significant improvements in…
(LEI: Cambridge, MA) -- Before offshoring work to low-wage countries, senior managers should use “lean math” to calculate the true total cost of relocating, according to management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., founder and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI).
Companies usually…
(BMGI: Amsterdam) --To ensure its team was maximizing the business' performance levels, Graphic Packaging International (GPI), a producer of packaging solutions with 15,000 employees worldwide and annual revenues over €13 billion ($18.3 billion), turned to Breakthrough Management Group…
It started slowly but surely. With the slump of the U.S. economy, companies started downsizing first by the dozens, then by the hundreds. Today, thousands of organizations across the country have in one way or another had to perform some kind of cost-cutting measure.
And as unemployment started…
(Georgia Institute of Technology: Atlanta) -- When entrepreneurs Sherrie Ford and Steve Hollis purchased a manufacturing facility previously owned by the Swiss conglomerate ABB (Asea Brown Boveri Ltd.), six years ago, one of their first items of business was to realign the company’s mission.…
(Littelfuse: Chicago) -- A continous improvement team from the Littelfuse Inc. manufacturing facility in the Philippines leveraged its lean Six Sigma process to garner silver winner award honors at the American Society for Quality (ASQ) 2009 International Team Excellence Award competition at the…
This paperback book will be easy to find on library shelves; just look for the one with the most dog-eared pages. Lean Six Sigma Using SigmaXL and Minitab, by Issa Bass and Barbara Lawton, Ph.D. (McGraw Hill, 2009) may become your most greatly used reference book. It’s a practical introduction to…
(Aveta Business Institute: Cleveland) -- It's no secret that in today's economy no job is secure. For the first time in more than 25 years, the United States unemployment rate has risen to 9.4 percent, as of May 2009. Along with this grim statistic come salary cuts, demotions, layoffs, and job…
MAG Industrial Automation Systems has been granted the Caterpillar Inc. Supplier Quality Excellence Process Certification (SQEP). MAG's Six Sigma program helped the company achieve the award.
Caterpillar's SQEP is presented to suppliers that demonstrate strong values, ethical principles, and a…