Lean Principles & Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement

[Stargazer]

Put the previously 'out to lunch' employee who is studying this in college and is now motivated in charge of this.

Can you inspire him to step up to the plate?

Can he handle how the others will react and overcome this and deliver.

If the answer is yes then you will be looking at your future Ops Manager.

Might as well find out now, not when everything is hunky-dory.

Dan

 

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[Lyinx]

Am I the only one who thinks this whole thread is focusing on the things that won't actually make a huge difference in bottom line profit?

You keep adding more and more complication for employees to follow. Who gives a flying f*ck about having employees clean bathrooms? They should be working on making you money! Have a cleaning lady clean the bathrooms.

Maybe I'd have to actually see you guys in action but to me this just seems like you're jerking yourself off trying to be Toyota.

Your posts on this thread are chock-full of corporate platitudes like "The goal: empowering all of my employees to be leaders, and to take ownership of their work."

View attachment 35493

Lean has some interesting upsides and downsides.
A few local companies found out a big downside lately, they were ordering lumber and poly as they needed it.. now they are running out.
Meantime, the companies that bought a semi load of each color/size are doing ok. They're still running out eventually, but overall are handling it better (I think)

 

[amp0193]

Put the previously 'out to lunch' employee who is studying this in college and is now motivated in charge of this.

Can you inspire him to step up to the plate?

Can he handle how the others will react and overcome this and deliver.

If the answer is yes then you will be looking at your future Ops Manager.

Might as well find out now, not when everything is hunky-dory.

Dan

I'm going to stay in charge for now until the direction we're moving in is a little more solidified.

But that employee does have that potential.


After a month or two, I'm going to implement a rotation over who's leading our morning meetings, and see what happens.

The goal is to develop leaders out of this.

 

[amp0193]

Lean has some interesting upsides and downsides.
A few local companies found out a big downside lately, they were ordering lumber and poly as they needed it.. now they are running out.
Meantime, the companies that bought a semi load of each color/size are doing ok. They're still running out eventually, but overall are handling it better (I think)

Covid supply chain issues?

That's affecting us bigtime right now. I've got deposits on inventory through next June, and some components for all of 2021.

But there's lots of locally sourced stuff that we're carrying too much inventory of. But more often, our problem is not ordering soon enough. We are reactive, instead of proactive.

 

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[amp0193]

I had a new employee post some awesome improvements this week!

On Tuesday, he timed an assembly task from start to completion at 1 hour and 4 minutes. He does this task 3 or 4 times a day.

After improving tool organization, reducing excess walking around and excess motion during assembly steps, building a jig to completely eliminate some steps... he got that time down to 42 minutes today.

He worked at the same even pace both times.

That's 1 hour/day, 5/hours a week, 20/hours a month now freed up to make more improvements.

----------------------

Other employees organized 5 parts bins today, that had parts mixed up in between. The parts look similar, but have slight differences. Every time they would go to pull those parts for an assembly, it was a huge pain in the a$$ to find what they needed.

Now it's sorted, and they put giant labels on the sides of each box so no one can mess it up going forwards! 10-30 minutes a week of waste and hassle eliminated.

------------------------

I spent an hour today cleaning up our company shared google drive. We were all frustrated every time we looked for a file, because there were so many useless folders and files in there. Frustration gone, files quickly found now. I'll need to create some standards regarding folder creation to maintain it, like maybe a place where all temporary short-term use files go (because that was most of the top level of the Drive!)

--------------------------

 

[mikeyjd]

Following. I appreciate your attention to detail.

 

[Lyinx]

Manufacturing Best Practices & OEE Techniques | Vorne

Learn manufacturing techniques that draw on best practices like lean production, theory of constraints, and six sigma.

www.vorne.com

lots of information about lean, make sure to check out their other links and information

 

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[Lyinx]

Introduction to Lean Manufacturing | Lean Production

Learn how lean production techniques successfully drive efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability in manufacturing.

www.leanproduction.com

 

[Lyinx]

thanks to you, I'm looking at lean again
got started down the fastpac/Lean journey, watching videos. I've found it helpful to watch these videos, as it gets your mind started.

sharing a folder full of information that I got about lean mfg (credits are on the paperwork for those that want it) , you just download from wetransfer (link coming). about 70 files. the important ones to start with are the seven deadly sins, and top 25 lean tools.

lean manufacturing/BPG_5S-System (fivess).pdf and 69 more files

70 files sent via WeTransfer, the simplest way to send your files around the world

we.tl

if you download all of those forms, and start on them one at a time, then you'll be well on your lean journey. makse sure to share with employees, so that they get the fire going (not just your fire) and they will rekindle your fire when yours burns low (which will happen sometime)

 

[Lyinx]

Did you tell your employees where they can watch those videos?

Also, consider sharing your improvement videos to your company youtube/facebook etc..
Sharing videos like this helps customers see that you are working, and it gives them a personal connection to you.

Go to any of paul ackers videos and read the comments. You will realize that people are buying from him because he is a nice guy, makes the best product he can, and is honest with them.

 

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[Lyinx]

Before and after photos of a quick improvement.
Improvements don't need to be expensive, they can be done on the fly and adapted later on to a custom solution

 

[Lyinx]

@Kung Fu Steve wonder what your thoughts are on lean? have you had any experience with it? seems like it would be something that you would do, focusing on constant improvement and all that.

 

[ShepardHumphries]

My primary business is a service business, and we love the idea, as Tony Robbins calls it, of "constant and never-ending improvement." We ask our new hires to look over operations with a fresh eye and identify problems, or even tiny things that we can improve. I frequently check TripAdvisor to discover little things that are not perfect... unfortunately, the reviews don't help with what is wrong, but they help us know what people like the most.

I find it frustrating when I ask our clients what we can do to improve, and they say that everything is great... that does not give me room to grow, it has helped me appreciate blunt and direct feedback when others ask for it though!

 

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[Kung Fu Steve]

@Kung Fu Steve wonder what your thoughts are on lean? have you had any experience with it? seems like it would be something that you would do, focusing on constant improvement and all that.

100% necessary for business owners (not necessarily business operators).

Lean is great (I'm a fan) and of course it's not the only solution out there. Six Sigma is another, of course. Tony has his own version he calls the Value Chain. I've even made some modifications and created my own system I call "the Machine."

I tend to focus more on internal and external communication processes. That's where I see the biggest holes in most companies I work with.

"I sent you an email" and that email never got read, so the order wasn't placed by the deadline, which means the product didn't ship on time for the customer, which means they canceled the order... now the company is not only out product costs, shipping costs, time costs, but now it has to make up more sales to cover the lost profit (not the lost revenue).

At 10% profit margins, losing $100 means you need an extra $1,000 in sales just to break even... and to get that original profit back, you'd actually need $2,000 in sales to make up for it.

I did a bunch of case studies in my little master class I did a while back of companies I actually worked with and you can see how quickly little mistakes turn into multi-million dollar problems.

Lean and others (actually now that I think about it, The E-Myth was one of my favorite books on this very subject) are what take you from a business operator to a business owner.

Anyone who downplays this stuff -- as trivial as it may seem -- will never have a business. Just a high-paying job.

Good on you, @amp0193 keep it up

 

[Lyinx]

100% necessary for business owners (not necessarily business operators).

Lean is great (I'm a fan) and of course it's not the only solution out there. Six Sigma is another, of course. Tony has his own version he calls the Value Chain. I've even made some modifications and created my own system I call "the Machine."

I tend to focus more on internal and external communication processes. That's where I see the biggest holes in most companies I work with.

"I sent you an email" and that email never got read, so the order wasn't placed by the deadline, which means the product didn't ship on time for the customer, which means they canceled the order... now the company is not only out product costs, shipping costs, time costs, but now it has to make up more sales to cover the lost profit (not the lost revenue).

At 10% profit margins, losing $100 means you need an extra $1,000 in sales just to break even... and to get that original profit back, you'd actually need $2,000 in sales to make up for it.

I did a bunch of case studies in my little master class I did a while back of companies I actually worked with and you can see how quickly little mistakes turn into multi-million dollar problems.

Lean and others (actually now that I think about it, The E-Myth was one of my favorite books on this very subject) are what take you from a business operator to a business owner.

Anyone who downplays this stuff -- as trivial as it may seem -- will never have a business. Just a high-paying job.

Good on you, @amp0193 keep it up

I got to experience your thinking on what you call "The Machine", and that's what made me think of you

 

[Lyinx]

update on your progress?

 

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[metallon]

Hi @amp0193

Check out this Facebook group LEAN Machining. A lot of people are discussing the implementation of LEAN methods in their shops.