kaizen

From the perspective of Total Lead Time, any company mainly wants to have a system that:

is able to comply with the delivery terms assumed;
continuously maintains an optimal stock level;
continuously reduces total lead time (especially in the production area – it’s handy);
reduces the number of operations an […]

It is obvious that the show of digitalisation, which we all attend, is aimed at increasing the level of productivity (and quality). This “show” will cover all areas around us – it is the new global resource.
At the company level, the lack of productivity growth has many causes. One of them is the lack o […]

Companies are aware that production planning has to take into account each type of set-up time.
Practitioners admit that they need set-up time standardization (SOP for set-up) for: (1) increasing flexibility and (2) continually improving set-up time. Sometimes, it is difficult for them to convince managers that for this […]

Indirect materials have amazing costs in most companies. However, often their standardization and improvement is not a continuous focus for companies (with visible results).
Large variations between system and factual data are often encountered, increasing and generating large and continuous discussions.
Often those invo […]

In every manufacturing company there is a flow of container transport to the work places (tour and return). But often there are numerous losses & waste associated with delays and/ or non-compliant supplies of containers. The annual costs associated with these types of losses & waste, together with the annual lost […]

Although the 5S method is the basis of management, often the 5S concept simply remains a rather meaningless slogan in some companies.
It is often the case that after several years since the “completion of 5S implementation”, some managers still have questions like: “Why 5S to us?”.
Managers say th […]

Even if all companies would like to be able to use all the resources they have to their fullest extent and to completely eliminate all losses & waste, often their actions are not part of a real culture of improvement.
Recently, I visited a few companies that highlighted equipment issues (especially breakdown and mino […]

Should an equipment/line that has significant variations between the standard and the actual cycle time be declared in a breakdown state? (standard cycle time lower than actual cycle time).
Sometimes I have this discussion in factories. Do you have standard cycle time on equipment/line? Do you measure the differences bet […]

Every manufacturing company must do the set-up (changeover) activity. Without this activity the work cannot be carried out and the flexibility imposed by the clients’ requests cannot be ensured.
But I often meet companies that do not have a standard time for each type of set-up or at least for the most frequent, co […]

I recently had experience in large manufacturing companies that sent employees largely only to Soft Skills training programs. Then I had improvement projects with them.
Everyone I talked to about Soft Skills said they had a lot of fun during the course, but that measurable business results didn’t come after months […]