How ZARA Revolutionized the Fashion Industry with Lean Practices

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ZARA changes its clothing designs every two weeks on average, offering upwards of 11,000 distinct garments every year. In comparison, competitors change their designs every three or four months and product 3-4,000 distinct pieces. This is fast fashion: the business model of replicating high-fashion, luxury-brand pieces quickly and cheaply, making them available to customers while […]

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Using Kanban to Streamline Processes and Improve Efficiency

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Kanban is a tool used in Lean Manufacturing to visually manage the workflow through your processes. It is based on the concept of a pull system where things are only replaced as they are consumed. 

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Navigating the Mechanics and Calculations of Pull Systems

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Does your organization use a pull or push system to allow your manufacturing function to meet your customers’ demand for your products? Let’s learn why a pull system might be a better approach for optimizing your organization.

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Achieving Excellence Through Quality Management

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The strategy of continuously improving your organizational processes by setting your goals, identifying deviations from those goals, and then taking appropriate actions to adjust your processes to close the gaps.

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Streamlining Production with Just-In-Time Manufacturing

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Have you ever had to shut down your manufacturing line because major components haven’t arrived from your supplier? Have you ever had to rent extra warehouses for your finished goods? Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing would prevent that from happening. Let’s see how that works.

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Make Work Visible: Add a Gemba to Knowledge Work

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When we leave the shop floor and enter the back office, we might think that people’s desks are where they work. We’d be wrong. Their workbench, their tooling, their line … is in their heads. This means that most knowledge work (information technology [IT], legal, management, product design, finance) is invisible. My colleague Tonianne tells […]

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Personal Kanban [Video] – With Jim Benson

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Kanban is a Japanese word that translates into “signboard” or “billboard,” and is a tool developed in Lean manufacturing but applied to any process. It is a visual scheduling system that allows a team – for any process – to know what needs to be done, what is being done and what has been done. Kanban can […]

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