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For more than 50 years, the linear variable differential transformer (LVDT) position sensor has been a reliable tool for linear position feedback for laboratory, industrial, military, and aerospace applications. These sensors can provide linear displacement measurements ranging from microinches…
As any conference-goer can attest, the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line when that line is the lunch line. At lean conferences like the ones I’ve attended, it’s especially incongruous to hear stories all morning about customer service and flow, and then later stand in a…
Bicycle design company Empire Cycles, and Renishaw, the United Kingdom’s only manufacturer of metal-based additive manufacturing machines, have collaborated to create a 3D-printed titanium bike frame. It’s based on the Empire MX-6 mountain bike design but is stronger and about 33-percent lighter…
Lean-practicing companies often employ day-by-the-hour (DBTH) charts within production cells and for other processes. The DBTH method uses a visual board to display what work must be completed each hour of the workday. The board is located in the work area and where specific process steps are…
If we were extraterrestrials or even just earthly kids, we’d be hard-pressed to understand the many lamentations about understaffing made at all organizational levels. The world’s seven billion inhabitants continually increase despite birth control policies and practices, thus making warm bodies…
What’s the biggest risk facing leaders of most entrepreneurial ventures? It’s not closing that first round of funding or landing a cornerstone customer. As with most things, it all comes back to people—and your ability to lead those who don’t have much practice following.
It’s easy to get seduced…
In the first installment of this series, we considered four traits to look for in an automated quality management system (QMS) that will provide the most long-term value for your money. Now we’ll take a more in-depth look at the automated QMS by breaking it down into its core functionalities and…
Lori, a software customer, phoned to ask if Cpk is the best statistic to use in a process that slits metal to exacting widths. As a PQ Systems technical support analyst, I too wondered what index would be best suited for her application, a highly specialized one. Perhaps Cpk, Ppk, Cpm, or some…
Can you believe this is a question that some people still ask? I can’t. But at least it gives me an opportunity to help convey the message about delivering great service and, ultimately, a great overall experience.
A couple weeks ago, I picked up a copy of Zingerman’s Guide to Giving Great…
During the first six months in their special, new, four-bedroom home in suburban Maryland, the Nisters, a prototypical family of four, earned about $40 by exporting 328 kilowatt hours of electricity into the local grid, while meeting all of their varied energy needs.
Furthermore, these virtual…
Matrix teams are a common method of staffing projects. If you were to draw a picture of it, a matrix structure in its simplest form might have projects running down the left side of the chart, and departments (e.g., engineering, research, purchasing, production) running across the top.
To staff a…
Following last month’s meeting, Belinda, the executive council’s facilitator, contacted the group’s consultant, Henrietta, and explained that they were interested in seeing a step-by-step approach for problem solving with TRIZ, something akin to what they had learned with Six Sigma and 5S (one of…
MassMEP’s ISO 9001:2008 Collaborative was conceived as a way to make the certification process more accessible to small and medium-sized manufacturers. The project brings four to eight companies together in a collaborative setting to help share costs and ideas.
The program takes members through…
Lean companies, for the most part, don't use work orders to control production. Why not? Because work orders are wasteful. It takes a lot of time and effort to run the work-order process, and it is 100-percent waste.
There's another, deeper reason as well. In many companies, work orders are…
My main objective is to encourage greater use of statistical techniques in the service sector and present new ways to implement them.
In a previous blog, I presented an approach you can use to identify process steps that may be improved in the service sector (quartile analysis). here I’ll show…
This is the last in my series making the case that the various improvement approaches are all pretty much the same.
There are seven sources of problems with a process. The first three help frame the situation: Source 1: Inadequate knowledge of customer needs Source 2: Inadequate knowledge of how…
During the Midwest floods of 1993, White Star Textile Services in Des Moines, Iowa, found itself faced with an ironic situation. The encroaching floodwaters had shut down all six pumps at the local water plant, and there wasn’t even enough water to flush toilets, let alone process 100,000 pounds…
How can governments increase efficiency, prevent errors, and improve customer service? Answer: ISO 9001.
ISO 9001 is by far the world's most established quality framework, currently being used by more than 1.5 million organizations in 191 countries. Those are some impressive numbers—and among the…
Not every process or problem will produce diagnostic data that we can use statistical or other mathematical tools to address. Sometimes we feel ill-equipped when we have a problem for which our neat and sophisticated tools won’t apply. What should we do?
We should remember that all our…
EY Technologies of Fall River, Massachusetts, designs and manufactures technical and specially coated yarns used in the telecommunications, aerospace, military, wearable electronics, and other industries. The facility employees 54 employees in its corporate headquarters, laboratory, and…
Recently, a reader of the Lean Self blog made an interesting remark, which is the headline you see above. It actually made me wonder: How happy are we if our to-do list is empty? And how full must it be for us to become unhappy?
Let's assume you have a personal kanban board: • If the Waiting and…
While reading a list of 5S activities, I thought, “Am I mistaken?” The activities on the list didn’t match what I thought they should be. I dug a little deeper and discovered there has been a lot of variation in the translation from Japanese to English for the methodology called 5S, which is often…
I remember two decades ago when I was in my first real executive role, and I was asked to come up with a strategy for my business unit. I was in control and I could develop and set a direction! I could finally use some of what I had learned in those traditional business school courses and seminars…
It is important to go to where the action is taking place. I was taught this as a young officer in the Navy, where, as in other areas of the military, we emphasized “leading from the front.” In warfare the reason is obvious: It is difficult to assess a complex situation from a distance. The…
I had been hired by the tourism department of a large Native American tribal government to help it develop a strategic plan. The department had a largish budget and had raised the visibility of tribal lands and attractions, but there was no rhyme or reason to the undertaking. Staff engaged public…
