Ovidiu Contras

Go with the guy that asked for help – but ask him before if he is ready to lead the transformation, by allocating ressources and personnaly participating in improvement activities.
Of course, you have to provide him knowledge of how Lean works (a Sensei).
Hope this helps
Ovi
 

Steven,
What about: being Lean, means to give customers

What they want
When they want it
Safely
With quality
Profitably – in the least waste way
Cheers,
Ovi
 
 

Didn’t heard of this accronym, but I guess it’s about the NVA But Necessary …
Hope this helps

Mike,
A clarification first. If:
 Lead Time (total time it takes for the product to pass through the whole process), then you are right – longest A or B + C.
Cycle Time (the actual time it takes to do an operation), then your work content (total Cycle Time) is A+B+C
Hope this helps

Walter,
White papers won’t do any good, without a deep understanding of Lean principles. Copying a formula without knowing what’s behind it is dangereous, especially when problems in the new setting arise.
My recommendation would be to learn about flow, pull, waste, root cause and all the related good stuff before doing anything .
Hope this helps

Walter,
White papers won’t do any good, without a deep understanding of Lean principles. Copying a formula without knowing what’s behind it is dangereous, especially when problems in the new setting arise.
My recommendation would be to learn about flow, pull, waste, root cause and all the related good stuff before doing anything .
Hope this helps

Sanjeev,
Your mamangement team has to understand first that what you got there is the ideal recepy for going out of business. Once they understood that, then you can suggest Lean. You can start highlighting the waste in the entire process by giving specific examples (overproduction, driven by utilization; inventory ….) and making the link to…[Read more]

Neo,
You’re correct – with the mention – you have to capture somewhow the information about rework (x% rework) next to the operation. VSM is an excellent tool to capture waste, and rework is waste.
Hope this helps

You got some good ideas in some of the posts. What I would try is going to the ideal state and work backwards to what is feasible. I know it’s easier said than done, but it’s woth it .
See what the ideal situation (not process) that satisfies the customer is, and ask Why we can’t do it that way? … several times
Hope this helps

ADB,
One of the things you have to verify is do you have enough capacity to handle the demand. One easy way of doing is dividing CT (cycle time)by TT (takt time), the result being the number of operators required to respond to the demand.
Let’s say the demand is 50 boxes per day. TT is 450min (available time) / 50 = 9 min . Let’s suppose that C…[Read more]

Blanco,
Tool (as an input) can have an influence on several things (as outputs): 
1) part-related: part dimensions , part surface finish – from this point of view, I’ll suggest to push further your investigation, look into the rework or scrap level in the lathe process, go and ask the next process if the parts are ok (not just the person doing…[Read more]

Blanco:
To put it simple: you want to control your input (tool) in order to have predictible output (part diameter).
Hope this helps

Maybe this can help
http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c030414a.asp

Forrest,
I hope I understand your question, so:
IF:
1. A 25% increase in productivity was achieved and proved by the 2 sample T-test for before and after intervals (assuming the productivity is measured in some form of continuous data)
2. The 2 sample T-test for the financial results showed for the same before and after intervals that they a…[Read more]

HornJM,
When we did this, the ivory tower moved closer to the shop floor, too.
In short term you’ll get frustrated office people, but in the long term you’ll have office people more aware of what happens on the shop floor.
The biggest problem we had was the noise – quite annoying when you talk on the phone – but we look at it as an…[Read more]

 
Try this article.
http://finance.isixsigma.com/library/content/c060208a.asp
Hope this helps.
 

John,
As the name states, VSM is about mapping how the value flows through your processess. So:
1. Define value – from the customer perspective – is it the service? is it the physical product?
2. Follow the value – how it flows through your processess – if it is the physical product, follow the operations involving the product
3. Follow the…[Read more]

Danny,
the Affinity Diagram can help you group the data based on categories. You can choose these categories yourself, organize the data accordingly, then run a Pareto Chart.
Hope this helps… 

Rich,
You can do some reading on Setup reduction techniques (most used is Single Minute Exchange of Dies – SMED). The principle is very simple:

identify internal (setup operations that can be performed just when a machine is idle or stopped, such as mounting or removing tooling) / external ( setup operations that can be performed while a…[Read more]

Ken,
Do you have the material flow? Do you have the information flow that goes with it? Do you have the timeline? Do you have data boxes for the activities? All pertinent info about the process is there?
If the answer is yes for these questions, you have a VSM.
As per VA/NVA discussion, do a research on this forum, there are interesting…[Read more]