Standards. You know they are important for manufacturing. You know Toyota and hence lean uses them extensively. But you may also know that they are not easy. I was thinking about writing a few blog posts on standards for a long time, but… it is a challenging topic. Let me give you my thoughts on standards and how to use them in lean manufacturing. But before going deeper into the use of standards over a few blog posts, I’ll provide a quick introduction on standards.| AllAboutLean.com
Business graph create in the hand drawn design 4M system for performance measurement idea. Stock Photo ID: 117170303 Copyright: MeePoohyaphoto with permission.| AllAboutLean.com
A lot of lean problem solving requires creativity. There are many creativity techniques available to help generate ideas for problem solving. In my last post I presented brainstorming, which is a freewheeling creativity technique. In this post I will show you some creativity techniques that have a more structured approach. These include mind maps and fishbone diagrams. Both can be used in groups, but they are also helpful if you need to tackle problems on your own.| AllAboutLean.com
The joy of cleaning!5S is one of the basic methods in lean manufacturing, used to create and maintain a clean and organized work environment. As far as lean methods go, it looks pretty easy. After all, everybody has cleaned something at least once. Unfortunately, cleaning it once is not enough. The challenge is to keep it clean! And this is where most 5S activities fail. In this post I want to describe the basics of 5S and how it works (plus also 4S, 6S, and even more S’s). In my next post ...| AllAboutLean.com
Confidence team leader. Young women asian owner startup business looking camera with smile while his colleagues working in the background. Stock Photo ID: 377167813 Copyright: marchmeena with permission from Bigstock.| AllAboutLean.com
How to Turn Your Car for Assembly—Part 1| www.allaboutlean.com
In this small blog post series I will do a deep dive on one aspect of automotive assembly—namely, how to position the car for assembly. While not all of you assemble cars for a living, understanding the approach on walking distances may be helpful to optimize other production systems. Read on … Introduction Cars are ... Read more| AllAboutLean.com
In this blog post I would like to introduce another Japanese term used in industry: Mendomi. Used at Toyota and also other Japanese firms, it means to take care of your employees. And, Toyota makes a good effort on this, albeit not flawlessly. Let’s dive deeper on what mendomi means (but don’t expect to find a new religion in there…).| AllAboutLean.com
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration logo| AllAboutLean.com
AI generated image of a burning Ford Pinto on an apothecary scale, with the other side having a pile of US Dollar. Generated with Gemini Ai, and hence in public domain.| AllAboutLean.com
MIL-STD-1520C military standard for corrective action and disposition system for nonconforming material. By the Department of Defense, in Public Domain| AllAboutLean.com
Ford Pinto hatchback. Foreground car is a restored example; background is a hot-rodded version with popup headlights. Photo by Morven at the So Cal Galaxies All-Ford Show in Anaheim, California on June 13, 2004. File:Ford Pinto.jpg by Morven and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.| AllAboutLean.com
Solutions to problems in lean manufacturing are manifold. However, there are also different ways to approach these problems. In this blog post, I will give you an overview of different ways to structure your problems, so you can match them with an adequate response or problem-solving approach. Introduction There are many different problems with even ... Read more| AllAboutLean.com
Yet another year has passed, and AllAboutLean.com is now twelve years old! 630 posts of lean content in English, plus selected blog posts translated into Chinese (thanks to Xie Xuan) and German (myself)! Time to celebrate again! Like every year I am surprised that again I managed to generate a (high-quality?) blog post every week for the last 52 weeks. I also managed to visit a few conferences again.| AllAboutLean.com
In this post of my series on the Toyota Practical Problem Solving (PPS), we finally get to the part many were excitedly waiting for—the development of countermeasures and their implementation. Some people like this part of actually doing the improvement (and hence finally the “Do” part of PDCA) so much that they skip the “Plan” part almost entirely. Don’t do that! Properly prepare and analyze before implementing a countermeasure. Without the plan, the countermeasure may be flawed.| AllAboutLean.com
Plan-Do-Check-Act (or PDCA) is one of the key elements in lean manufacturing, or for that matter in any kind of improvement process. In my view, it is the most basic framework for any kind of change. All other lean tools are only on top of the PDCA.| AllAboutLean.com
In this (by now rather long) series of blog posts on the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D) I have explained the nine (!) steps of the 8D in detail. In this last blog post of this series, I will now look at the strengths and weaknesses of the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving, especially in comparison ... Read more| AllAboutLean.com
In this series of posts I go through the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D) in more detail. In my last post, I talked about D5: Develop Permanent Solution and D6: Implement Permanent Solution. In this post I will go into more detail on the last two points, D7: Prevent Recurrence and D8: Close Problem and ... Read more| AllAboutLean.com
In this series of posts I go through the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D) in more detail. In my last post, I talked about D4: Root Cause Analysis and Escape Points, which is almost two separate points. In this post I will go into more detail of D5: Develop Permanent Solution and D6: Implement Permanent Solution. My next post will look at the last two disciplines of the 8D with D7: Prevent Recurrence and D8: Close problem and Recognize Contributors. Read on!| AllAboutLean.com
In this series of posts I go through the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D) in more detail. In my last post, I talked about D2: Describe the Problem and D3: Develop Interim Containment Plan. In this post I will go into more detail of D4: Root Cause Analysis and Escape Points. (Now you can probably ... Read more| AllAboutLean.com
In this series of posts I go through the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D) in more detail. In my last post, I talked about D0: Preparation and Emergency Response Actions and D1: Establish a Team. In this post I will go into more detail of D2: Describe the Problem and D3: Develop Interim Containment Plan. (Now you can probably guess what my next post will be all about too). Read on!| AllAboutLean.com
Lean is a lot of problem solving. Toyota excels at such problem solving, and they have developed their practical problem solving (PPS) approach. For many it is surprising how much time Toyota spends on defining and understanding the problem, whereas (many in) the rest of the world immediately jump to a (possibly inferior) solution. Let me go through the process step by step.| AllAboutLean.com
Heroes save the day. Heroes turn around the disaster and rescue the puppy from the burning building. Heroes are admired, and everybody wants to be one. Everybody wants a hero when they need one.| AllAboutLean.com
In my previous posts, I looked at where the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D) originated from, like the Ford Pinto fuel tank scandal, and also when to use 8D (and when not to). In this post I want to go deeper into the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving and dive through all eight… actually nine steps of this 8D. Since this is a lot of material to cover, I will go though it bit by bit, with this post covering the first two disciplines D0: Preparation and Emergency Response Actions and D1...| AllAboutLean.com
This series of blog posts looks into more detail at the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D), a popular method to tackle recurring problems. In my last post, I looked at where the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving (8D) originated, like the Ford Pinto fuel tank scandal. This post goes deeper into what the Eight Disciplines Problem Solving is actually for, when to use it, and when not. | AllAboutLean.com
One popular approach to problem solving is the eight disciplines problem solving, or 8D for short (even though they are now 9D). This is an alternative to the Toyota Practical Problem Solving. I slightly prefer the Toyota approach over the 8D approach developed by Ford, but the 8D also has its advantages. Since it focuses more on urgent quality issues, it has a bigger emphasis on quick reaction and containment plans, but in my view falls a bit short on the Check and Act of the PDCA. I will ta...| AllAboutLean.com
In my last post, I looked at the questions What—When—Where—Why—Who—How… and Then Some… for the Toyota Practical Problem Solving. In this post I will look into another, similar structure that could also be used, namely Man—Machine—Material—Method, again with quite a few possible expansions and alternatives. This can be used both to structure the problem (i.e., a root cause analysis) or to break down the problem into smaller, more manageable pieces.| AllAboutLean.com
The Toyota Practical Problem Solving is a very structured approach to solve problems. The underlying PDCA is broken down into multiple steps, where the “Plan” part especially is divided into Clarify the Problem, Break Down the Problem, Set a Target, and a Root-Cause Analysis. In this post I will look at the What—When—Where—Why—Who—How structure, also known as the 5W1H, that can help you when clarifying the problem. This structure was used in journalism starting around 1913, bu...| AllAboutLean.com
One of the necessary tasks in becoming leaner and improving your industry is to eliminate waste. I like to use a simple approach for measuring waste in manual work to know how good (or bad) the current situation is. To explain my approach I commissioned a few animations. Let me proudly present my approach and my animations, so you can also estimate the efficiency of manual lines when you are on the shop floor. | AllAboutLean.com
