"I have discovered that the principles of yoga and the principles of lean enterprise are complimentary. When yoga is laid down as the foundation upon which to built a lean enterprise, the combination is far more powerful than one without the other." Henry N. Huta

How to eliminate waste from your operations, turn your employees into a Gung-ho team and your customers into raving fans...

LEAN ENTERPRISE :

Eliminating waste will free up valuable human, brick and mortar, machine and capital resources to focus on customer value added processes that generate more profit.

This is a different way of thinking about how to conduct business.  A way of thinking that will provide you and your company with step function increased improvements in manufacturing, operations, sales and administration.

This is not the flavor of the month from the latest consulting gurus.

Lean Enterprise was developed in the United States over 50 years ago, perfected in Japan by the Toyota Corporation and reintroduced to the U.S. in the 1980's. It is used by many large U.S. companies such as GE and many small corporations.

Lean Manufacturing is not about one time gains.  This is about continuous improvement

Which of the following causes for action apply to you?

• U.S. manufacturing sector of the economy remains depressed
• Manufacturers in North America have overcapacity
• Low cost countries such as China pose immediate threat
• Customers continue to postpone capital spending
• Sales forecast versus Plan is down
• Operating Income forecast versus Plan is down

Would You Gain More Market Share if You Could:

• dramatically improve lead times over competition
• substantially reduce costs
• avoid no-quoting orders because of lead times and price
• book a higher percentage of quotes
• reduce returns
• reduce changeover/set up times

Have any of your competitors gone Lean? Do you know?

What if your competitor looked like this?

Lean Enterprise improves the following by step functions:

•  QUALITY

•  COST

•  DELIVERY

•  INNOVATION

Lean Enterprise incorporates a daily discipline of:

• relentless elimination of waste
• production schedules driven by the customer, not MRP forecasts (“Pull” versus the traditional “Push”)
• pricing based on the market, not cost
• relentless pursuit of perfection in providing customers with what they want
• in the quantity they want
• when they want it
• at the highest quality
• and at a fair competitive price

Lean Enterprise goals within the first 12 months are to:

• Reduce lead times by 50%
• 100% inventory turns improvement
• Near zero defects – 50% improvement in 6 Sigma

Competitors will try to follow and the only way they know how is through price reductions and inventory builds. They won’t be around long.

Customer Expectations

• 5% price reductions per annum in stable economies
• Lead time (order-to-delivery): days not weeks
• 100% on time delivery
• Customer quality requirements Today: less than 100 ppm Tomorrow: 3.4ppm What is Your Current Performance ppm?
• Service: Responsiveness (Be there when they call!!!)
• Flexibility to attend varying customer demands up to the date of shipment
• Direct links between clients’ scheduling and your facility
• Manufacturing: new designs with specific needs for differentiation

A challenging set of requirements!!!

The Lean Vision

• Is Devoid of Waste
• Exposes Problems Real Time
• Deals With Facts, Not Assumptions
• Forces “Root Cause” Problem Resolution
• Sustains Company-Wide Continuous Improvement
• Encourages Legitimate Employee Involvement
• Meets or Exceeds Customer Expectations

Some Myths about Lean

1. Lean only affects manufacturing › Not true, it affects the whole company, including Sales, Finance, Engineering, Quality, Purchasing, Administration, MIS and Human Resources.
2. Lean is another flavor of the month › Not true, it is a truly different way of life. It’s been around for over 50 years. It’s now being recognized as a primary competitive advantage.
3. Lean is not applicable to your industry › Not true, we are already seeing the benefits in hundreds of diverse situations in manufacturing and services.

Seven Lean Pillars of Success

1. 5 S
2. Eliminate Waste
3. Pull production
4. Visual Management
5. Standard work
6. Zero defects
7. Workforce empowerment

5 S

• Sort - Determine what is needed and remove the rest
• Straighten - Label everything and make things easy to find
• Scrub - Clean and paint the workplace
• Standardize - Standardize work programs for all shifts
• Sustain - Make it a habit

Waste Elimination: Seven Deadly Sins of Waste

• Overproduction of Inventory-Producing larger quantities than needed
• Transportation-Moving the product from where it was produced to where it is needed
• Reworking-Reworking product that is defective: materials, labor and machine time
• Movement-Movement of people or machines that does not add value
• Waiting-When people or machines stand idle waiting for a previous process
• Stock on Hand-Excess product that cannot be immediately consumed
• Processing-Processing work that isn’t needed.

Pull Production - Continuous Flow (Don't make things until the customer wants them)

Visual Management Guidelines for Visual Control

Standard Work

Standardized work is the foundation for continuous improvement in production. It organizes and defines worker movements. This is important because when the work sequence is different each time and/or the motions are disorganized, there is no baseline for evaluation. Worker improvements are unclear and difficult to monitor. In such cases, continuous improvement is meaningless. For this reason, the first step to continuous improvement is standard work.

Zero Defects

Know your operations. Customer quality needs to be at the Six Sigma level. One sigma means that 68% of the products are acceptable. Three sigma means 99.7% are acceptable. Six sigma, the ultimate goal, means that 99.999997% are acceptable. A typical process in US manufacturing firms generates about 35,000 to 50,000 defects parts per million (ppm). ( I hope you're not driving in that car or operating that computer.)

Workforce Empowerment

• Participative instead of autocratic management
• Self-directed, empowered teams
• Team members and leaders determine manufacturing
• Kanbans to minimize set ups
• Manufacturing teams direct contact with scheduling and customer service
• Culture is “not blame oriented”
• Teamwork training Management and operators celebrate achievements

Continuous Pursuit of Perfection

There will be resistance!

If you want to eliminate waste from your operations, turn your employees into a Gungho team, and your customers into raving fans...please e-mail us at info@archfield.com