As title, just wondering how many people practice lean on this site? And if do, what tools do you use the most?
I always start with 5S but amazed how many firms dont even do that correctly. The 5th S is always the hardest and really tells you if the firm has the
capability to proceed. Most seem to want to dive into Kaizen and save some cash.
[Edited on 3/6/13 by DarrenW]
From what I've seen in my organisation, yes - they go straight to Kaizen...and that's how the internal training courses are run...no mention of 5S anywhere so far...
Also interested to know if you are in a traditional manufacturing environment or a service sector. Whatever your sector, tell me what the industry
is.
I tend to stay within automotive for lean type work, but work in rail and renewable energy for other consultancy.
Im a big fan of lean in manufacturing (Consultant). there are big advantages of using the tools in the service sector, especially as that is probs the
future of this country.
[Edited on 3/6/13 by DarrenW]
I wish I knew what you were on about
Sounds like more corporate bullsh!te insted of letting the people who know what they are doing get on with the job How much does it cost ?
Services, Telecoms. Also being applied in manufacturing and design...
I am a Green Belt in DMAIC (GE - Lean/Six Sigma), and a yellow belt in DFSS. We are just trying to introduce lean six-sigma principals to the company
I work for (design and manufacturing of carbon fibre and carbon fibre products), but it is a slow process (quality hasn't been a focus up until
now).
If you always start with 5S, you are presumably trying to make improvements, rather than fixing a specific quality issue?
Food manufacturing, been a long journey but finally getting staff to realise the benefits.
Common sense to you and me, but basically a place for everything and everything in its place..
#OCD
#love5S
Sustainability is the hardest S , but it's so rewarding when it gets there.
Bit of corporate bullshit if you view it that way, but it's a fact that simple is easy and why make it difficult, none of us would work the hours
we do if we didn't have too...
Next.
I had to check that I hadn't stumbled onto a Linkedin forum in error...
My thesis looked at the understanding of Lean and its application within SMEs (in Wales specifically.) I was enormously surprised by how few business
leaders understood any of TPM/TQM/Lean/6sigma at any usable level - this is based on a pretty large survey. Because I'd 'been exposed'
very early in my career I'd assumed that the methods would be fairly well understood. Not so.
My particular leaning is towards what I think of as fairly 'pure Lean' - that is something akin to what Toyota built. A lot of what has
followed looks like old wine in a new bottle to me. That said, I'm yet to work in a manufacturing system with that level of maturity so
Collaboration (intra-and-inter firm) and C.I. (not keen on Kaizen as a term as it can turn people off and it's not easy to explain a Japanese
term to folk from Poland/India/Pakistan etc. in English) are what I think of as 'Lean Envoys' - foundation stones for more complex
ideas/tools/methods that may follow.
VSM can be hugely helpful - although I struggle for time to do it well. The Beer Game continues to be the single best afternoon that I can spend with
Supply Chain people who do any sort of forecasting or ordering.
Forgot to say, like Wombat, I work in the food industry.
Can I get back to cars now?
[Edited on 3/6/13 by TimC]
Well all you food manfacturing types, I started at 13:00 yesterday, finished at 02:00 today, not bad for what my contract says is 7.5 hours a day.
No 5S, no fishbones, no kaizan.
We dont have the people, we dont have the time, production is king.
And yes I have done BIT 2 and 3, but then we step back into the real world
quote:
Originally posted by JacksAvon
Well all you food manfacturing types, I started at 13:00 yesterday, finished at 02:00 today, not bad for what my contract says is 7.5 hours a day.
No 5S, no fishbones, no kaizan.
We dont have the people, we dont have the time, production is king.
And yes I have done BIT 2 and 3, but then we step back into the real world
worked in some very large organisations where it has been in place for 20+ years.
Most of it is common sense, but getting the people (most expereicned) on board who really make the difference is the biggest hurdle.
Its these (sceptical, because they've seen all the latest flavour of the month initiative) people who get the widgets out the door, that
count.
I'm in the sceptical camp, as when the latest flavour of the month comes around, its starts off with one or two champions then spawns its own
dept, ending up with dozens of people who would be better off helping get the very widgets out of the door that pays their wages...................my
tuppence!!
Too much talking not enough doing! That is why we are no longer a great manufacturing nation. Stop talking about how to do it and just bloody get on
with it!
I've seen Kaizen used in Retail Banking back office processes.
That was a while ago.
Don't think my company uses any branded methodology...though most project follow Prince2 I think.
quote:
Originally posted by JacksAvonWe dont have the people, we dont have the time, production is king.
And yes I have done BIT 2 and 3, but then we step back into the real world
we've got this in our place at the moment - as a result we've lost an hour a day to meetings, and we're now doing more admin (that
admin staff used to do) instead of doing paying work. Oh and because we've made less money, I don't get a pay rise this year.
I feel a little set up!
I work in the pharmaceutical industry and we use 5S, lean, 6 sigma. In my own opinion:
5S is good for areas where many people use a given area E.g the workshops where everyone need to be able to find a specific tool, control room where
verything is handed over every 8 hours etc, but not so useful in the 'individaul user' areas where it is unusual for someone else to have to
find something.
Lean is good for Technical people where a small number of people can decide what is required and make the decisions required. E.g for most problems
6 sigma is good if you need a lot of different people from different disciplines to get together to solve a problem, or if you need non technical
management buy in to your work (usually to get budgets approved). Unless the amount of work is large(by which I mean many man weeks), you tend to
waste a lot of time trying to get succinct and complete problem statements, KPIs etc that don't benefit us a lot. I have often found the
solutions tend to end up going for the 100% solution, when an approach where you just use the 'lean'/most obvious improvement and the old
fashioned 80/20 (or 90/10 even) rule would have been good enough.
Unfortunately I think we often to use 6Sigma for problems where everyone knows 'the answer' after 2 hours and you then spend 2 weeks
ploughing through the process to get through the procedure.
Regards
Hugh
I know what your on about and really pleased I got out of it!
I just love explaining to never ending streams of people the reasons why we've ended up doing a process a certain way. These people seem to genuinely believe that we make our jobs intentionally difficult. I know exactly what will happen next time we have a 'lean event'. We'll spend a week sat in meetings about why spanners should be arranged in order of frequency of use. A week moving everything around at work so it looks like something has been achieved and all the clowns can pat themselves on the back. A week of working massively inefficiently as they've messed around with all the processes which had evolved over the years to a point of being about as efficient as they could be. Then one week of putting it all back to how it was before they started mucking about. At the end of it all, we'll be a month behind but will have some nice new mouse mats and cheap biros that don't work.
Some very interesting comments. Im picking up the 'negative' views are more from those that are on the receiving end of Lean as opposed to
those implementing it (negative in the loosest sense). Iam not surprised by the comments as i have worked on both sides of it. What is jumping out
very clearly is that which-ever company is trying to implement it and leaving you with these views either clearly doesnt understand how the tools and
techniques fit together. Cherry picking is where the 'flavour of the month' misconception comes from.
Right now i practice and implement it, and try to de-jargon where possible. I prefer to major on the common sense / benefits for all side (for obvious
reasons).
Carry on offering your views please.
quote:
Originally posted by garybee
I just love explaining to never ending streams of people the reasons why we've ended up doing a process a certain way. These people seem to genuinely believe that we make our jobs intentionally difficult. I know exactly what will happen next time we have a 'lean event'. We'll spend a week sat in meetings about why spanners should be arranged in order of frequency of use. A week moving everything around at work so it looks like something has been achieved and all the clowns can pat themselves on the back. A week of working massively inefficiently as they've messed around with all the processes which had evolved over the years to a point of being about as efficient as they could be. Then one week of putting it all back to how it was before they started mucking about. At the end of it all, we'll be a month behind but will have some nice new mouse mats and cheap biros that don't work.
quote:
Originally posted by sdh2903
Too much talking not enough doing! That is why we are no longer a great manufacturing nation. Stop talking about how to do it and just bloody get on with it!
As an example of making a positive change, my Six-Sigma Green Belt project looked at a quality issue in a previous company I worked for. The issue had
been looked at several times before by production/manufacturing engineers with no cause identified.
By applying the methodology, over a 2 month period, I identified some changes to our process, that reduced that defect by ~80% for one product (my
project only looked at one product, although the changes could have been applied to others afterwards). The changes will have given a saving of
£800,000 per year in scrap/re-work. I think that is worth my 2 months, an the very modest budget I need to complete the project.
I don't have as much time for Lean, although I can its place. For me, it was far more interesting to be solving a problem using statistics etc (a
technical problem in my case) than to be 'applying common sense principals'.
Fantastic example Twybrow. all i would say is that if done correctly it is not about having time for Lean - Lean is a culture rather than an event.
Again this suggests the company does not understand what it is as it should be a part of normal working.
havind said all this - it took Toyota years to perfect and embed within their organisation so we cant expect all companies to be
'transformed' overnight (what a horrible little phrase!!!!!)
hmmm timesheets anyone ?
Claim any extra work outside of clocking on/out from your timesheet tho , gets a 
from the management .
just in time never works in a garage , because you dont know what parts you need until the job is here , then when you do want something , its got a 2
week leadtime , except production will have planned meticulously how long itll take you to do the job.....
and yes its automotive , we have 5s and 6 sigma , and all the other bullshit , but still cant organise a wee up in a brewery.....
quote:
Originally posted by Volvorsport
hmmm timesheets anyone ?
Claim any extra work outside of clocking on/out from your timesheet tho , gets a
just in time never works in a garage , because you dont know what parts you need until the job is here , then when you do want something , its got a 2 week leadtime , except production will have planned meticulously how long itll take you to do the job.....
and yes its automotive , we have 5s and 6 sigma , and all the other bullshit , but still cant organise a wee up in a brewery.....
I am qualified in various areas in this field, done while I worked for the Timken company.
there are some very useful lean tools, the big problem is that there is a LOT of skill required in knowing how and when to implement them.
The ONLY person I have ever worked with that knew what they were doing in this field was my boss at my last company before i left to set up my own
business, that was Martin Dinsley, at Schlegel Automotive Europe ltd.
He knew all the "tools" (never sure I like that term, but suppose its the best description), as many people do, but also had the logical
approach and interpersonal skills to put them into effect. I learnt more working for/with him that anywhere else in my life I think! This also
reinforced in my mind the fact that I am definitely NOT a manager, and as that was the only way for me to "progress" within engineering
industry, brought about my setting up Retropower Ltd with my brother!
Previous to this, my experience was of totally useless implementation at Timken in the uk, due to completely hopeless management by people who were no
more a manager than any of the operators on the shop floor (which is where these "managers" originated, having worked their way up through
atrition!) many of whom would have done a much better job!
We use all the principles of 5S at Retropower, most of it being logical, if not always easy to impress on employees! They did laugh when I painted the
red "Mysteron eye" circles on the floor where the waste bins go, but now they can always find the bins................
Likewise it sounds a bit OTT when we mention our parts "manifest" system to customers, but it means that we know exactly which tray, in
which pallet box, on which bay of racking, contains that fuel rail or brake caliper for one of the 20 cars we have completely stripped down in the
workshop!
It also means that we know what parts count is at the platers, and which "kanban" trays are waiting to go there
We're not big enough to use much in the way of statistical tools though (yet!) so I can't be of much use there, as I've forgotten a lot
of what I learnt! I do have a rather dated copy of JMP statistical analysis software if its any use!
PS I did quite a lot of work with Toyota as well when working for Schlegel, very interesting stuff. Interesting to see the different approaches of
their various suppliers too!
We worked as part of Toyota TEAM suppliers, and the experience ranged from truly dynamic companies, lead by enthusiastic management (Futaba Tenneco in
Burnley springs to mind) who were open to suggestions, took action, and really were great to work with, meaning both they and the visiting companies
benefitted from the "jolly", to others (zf lemforder) where the feeling I got was that they entire company percieved the TEAM process as an
unnecessary nose into their affairs, they provided "token" problems within their processes that they had already "solved", and
then glossed over any suggestions to improve systems.
It was interesting to see that the entire "feel" of the companies from the outset was reflected in their approaches, i.e. stuffy wood
panelled boardrooms, lots of suits and ties, us and them culture with shop floor seemed to result in stuffy processes, dislike of time and motion type
studies, general un-openness and unwillingness to change, vs companies with simple meeting rooms, near shop floor, company workwear worn by manager
and floor alike (japanese style) proper "get hands dirty" style management seemed to result in stuff getitng done and progress being made,
openness on the shop floor, time studies being welcomed, operators very happy to demonstrate processes etc etc.
There were moments in my career I have loved, and a few of those were working with Toyota and their suppliers, so much learnt!
can you Kanban my volvo 242 rear arches for me.....
My previous post may have seemed a little totally against the idea of 5s/6sigma. I work in the aerospace industry, where particularly during heavy
maintenance checks the procedures around tooling, equipment, housekeeping etc are essential. But where my irks comes from is that these procedures to
me are just common sense, the procedures are there for the numptys who don't know there arse from their elbow and usually reside in an office
where the most technical job for them is adjusting their chair.
My other major irk is big companies, BA immediately spring to mind, throw a book at an office waller, and they become the 5S champion, no proper
training no experience etc then they wonder why people don't buy into it. Only now 5 years later have they actually brought in an outside team to
look at processes to reduce Airbus heavy maintenance times. Because these people have the knowledge people do pay more attention.
I am still of the opinion there's too much talking though
quote:
Originally posted by Volvorsport
can you Kanban my volvo 242 rear arches for me.....
quote:
Originally posted by sdh2903
My other major irk is big companies, BA immediately spring to mind, throw a book at an office waller, and they become the 5S champion, no proper training no experience etc then they wonder why people don't buy into it. Only now 5 years later have they actually brought in an outside team to look at processes to reduce Airbus heavy maintenance times. Because these people have the knowledge people do pay more attention.
I am still of the opinion there's too much talking though
rust repair , i did email ya , but no repsonse.....
im picking car up on on 29th june in belgium , i could deliver it straight off to you .
altho i need to go through it just to see what it needs , ill buy the repair panels , strip down whatever , just want the welding done and primer/rust
killer , thats it .
its not actually that bad , but if it means i only have to do mechanical stuff to get it through MOT , then im happy ..