Lean Manufacturing Is a Form of Ethics

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According to Merriam-Webster, ethics is the discipline of dealing with good and bad. If you look beyond the tools and the jargon of the Toyota Production System (TPS), this is exactly what you will find; TPS is a system for defining good and bad, and right and wrong in a production environment. When we understand […]

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Six Sigma Master Black Belt Body of Knowledge – 2013

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In Six Sigma Black Belt Curriculum and Body of Knowledge – 2012, a universal, highly technical body of knowledge was proposed to equip Black Belts with the expertise and abilities needed to lead nontrivial process improvement efforts over a full spectrum of diverse scenarios. But what additional technical knowledge should be expected for a Master […]

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Improving the Productivity of a Service Team

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The manufacturing and transactional worlds have long used productivity as a measure of efficiency. Traditionally, a productivity metric has been used for assessing return on investment on machinery to measure the contributions of team members. In the growing service economy where human resources are the biggest driver of costs in the organization, management teams want […]

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BMW Lean Manufacturing Wows Boeing

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In Everett, Washington, the director of Boeing 777 manufacturing, Jason Clark, is proud to introduce some of the most recent Lean technologies to automation. Traditionally a team of painters would apply coats of paint on the airplane being built. An entire team would take 4 to 5 hours just to apply the initial coat. Now, […]

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Applying Lean to New Product Development in Engineering Services

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Lean can be applied to any industry, not just manufacturing, because any business can benefit from improvements in cycle time, cost savings, productivity, efficiency and more. This case study examines the application of Lean to the engineering services industry in the areas of design, analysis and prototyping of parts to realize improvements in a subprocess […]

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Baltimore Aircoil Company Wins Environmental Solution Award

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Baltimore Aircoil Company (BAC) recently won an environmental solution of the year award from Endeavor for using a holistic approach to sustain and operate its factory – made possible by the company’s reinvigoration using Lean Six Sigma (LSS). Several aspects of its business were improved, including its manufacturing approach, product sourcing and design. BAC makes […]

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Implementation of Six Sigma Priority Matrixes and a Tollgate Process

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Working for a large multinational corporation has given me insight into, and sympathy for, the hearts and minds of department and cost center leaders. Each year they are required by company leadership to find millions of dollars using Six Sigma productivity initiatives – a subtle way of saying “savings.” Some people volunteer, but many are […]

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When and How to Use Plackett-Burman Experimental Design

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Plackett-Burman experimental design is used to identify the most important factors early in the experimentation phase when complete knowledge about the system is usually unavailable. Developed in 1946 by statisticians Robin L. Plackett and J.P. Burman, it is an efficient screening method to identify the active factors using as few experimental runs as possible. In […]

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